tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28886277167127855532018-03-08T06:49:08.443-08:00OrygynHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!
This is the greeting I give everywhere I post under the name Orygyn. Well, not quite everywhere. This is my tagline. What I do is write or talk about political issues, music (specifically from an analytical and compositional standpoint), encourage people to think for themselves, and anything else I feel like at the time but those are the main ones. Enjoy 8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-13240429323352950782016-03-02T15:13:00.001-08:002016-03-02T15:13:13.566-08:00#NotWithTheMob 2Hi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />I know. It's been ages since I posted here. This would've been a video but my phone's acting up and I want to make note of this while it's still fresh in my mind.<br /><br />I recently watched DarkMatter2525's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RM2SuMyYDU">new video</a>. I saw gothatfunk's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHYuAfVw3dU">video about the primaries</a>. I saw the last 2 episodes of David Eagleman's series on the brain, the 5th episode being the relevant one. I saw slightly older videos of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPMSwKbY5ms">a dispute between the Young Turks and Sam Harris, the latter advocating a nuclear first strike on Iran</a>. And we've got Brexit going on here, in which immigrants are part of the discussion. How are all of these related? I like to speculate about the future, but not normally the immediate future. There is a possible immediate future I find quite chilling:<br /><br />To illustrate this example, let's imagine a DEFCON-like system for attitudes to out-groups. SUBHUMAN 5 is neutral. SUBHUMAN 4 is gossip: mocking sentiments expressed towards outgroups, but the sentiments are not generally sinister (think Emos back in the mid-late 00s). SUBHUMAN 3 is significant here. I would say that Muslims have been at SUBHUMAN 3 since 9/11. Based on DarkMatter's video, and in combination with the ramping up of the language and hostility of the attitudes I've seen towards the feminist/SJW community recently, I am also classifying them SUBHUMAN 3: the relatively common view that the community is somehow a threat or a danger. Let me be clear about this: whether you feel it's justified or not is irrelevant. You will see how this is a problem as we look at the next 2 levels.<br /><br />SUBHUMAN 2 is when a dehumanizing process has begun: the Muslim community is dangerously close to SUBHUMAN 2, and if Trump gets elected, there is a real possibility of what Sam Harris is advocating at some point down the line. SUBHUMAN 2 can be declared safely when legislation has been passed against the out-group. For example, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYBRLtBzTaY">ID cards</a>. SUBHUMAN 1, by the way, is when a significant portion of the population can have a psychopathic lack of empathy towards the out-group to the point where attacks and genocide are possible, a reality described and documented by David Eagleman in his documentary.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong. This probably won't happen. We live in more peaceful times than ever (if you don't believe me, just compare now to this point in the century 100 years ago). We are more connected and tolerant of all sorts of different out-groups than we've ever been. However, having a community the core principles of which is to reduce discrimination (but may not go about it in the best way) this demonized at a time when Muslims are demonized as well and ISIS attacks are fresh in people's minds with more anticipated and warned of by the group? This is a perfect storm.<br /><br />I foresee a possible future where Donald Trump becomes president at a time of great suspicion of Muslims, increasing suspicion of SJWs and liberals by extension, possibly aided by an ISIS attack on home soil (if this happens, things will be bleak), and it not only turns out that "he says what he thinks", but he does what he says. Is it scaremongering? By default I guess. That doesn't make it impossible. The benefit of the human brain is that we can imagine scenarios in order to stop them before they become reality. We can break any one of these links in the chain to prevent this from happening, and many have argued against Donald Trump better than I could, but my specialty is skepticism. Skepticism to me is assessing claims for their merit. This necessarily involves cultivating an understanding of opposing ideologies and empathizing with their perspectives. None of this is compatible with mob justice. The irony of a mob arising against a community which has a reputation, deserved or not, for mob justice should sting. If you're part of that mob, shame on you. This is an extremely important time to be...<br /><br />#NotWithTheMob<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-21654412524676858342016-01-04T11:59:00.000-08:002016-01-04T11:59:05.105-08:00Why The Wage Gap Argument PersistsHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />Quickie here as it's a response to a tweet. I hope my shorthand here is understandable:<br /><br />Original<br />"no-one has refuted the pay gap" (pic of bemused looking manga girl)<br /><br />My response<br />It hasn't. Studies showing there are POSSIBLY other factors do not constitute a refutation.<br /><br />Response (combined from 2 tweets)<br />taking in all factors beside gender it minimizes to 6 or 2 cents. and even then there is no evidence its caused by gendered discrimination on the wages. god in the gaps is your answer<br /><br />Rather than attempt to condense my response into a tweet or a few tweets, I'll do it here.<br /><br />First, a clarification of my tweet. I've looked at the studies that have been done that are normally cited to try to discredit the wage gap. When I said that the studies POSSIBLY show that the gap can be explained by other factors, what I'm referring to here is the fact that just because a study, or studies, have been done purporting to show that the wage gap can be explained by other factors, doesn't mean you've debunked the wage gap argument. In order to debunk the argument, you have to show that the gap CANNOT be explained by gender discrimination. None of the studies I've seen at least ever try to claim this, in fact, when it comes to studies in general, I tend to find repeated disclaimers about not over-interpreting the results.<br /><br />Now you may argue that this is not possible to do, and you'd be right. This is precisely why the argument persists. My own position is that I think the studies have a lot of merit in explaining MOST of the wage gap AT PRESENT, but, having made my point that the wage gap argument CANNOT ever be fully debunked, I believe we should always keep an eye on it, keep doing studies to assess why there is an absolute wage gap, what explanatory factors are involved, and that as little of it as possible is caused by discrimination, implicit or otherwise. This leads me to my next point: the statement that there is no evidence it's caused by discrimination is flat-out false. It takes nothing more than looking at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap">Wikipedia page</a> to find links to studies that have demonstrated this. Even if I grant that, however, the POTENTIAL always exists. We do not live in a police state. Businesses, no matter where you live, have some degree of freedom to hire and fire, and no regulatory process will ever screen out discrimination entirely. A counter-balance is always necessary to make sure that discrimination doesn't run rampant, and, in following on from my earlier point, I think a reason why the argument is still made is precisely to provide this counter-balance.<br /><br />Finally, "god in the gaps" is not relevant here. "God in the gaps" refers to science eliminating the number of possible contexts under which a god can exist and religious people squeezing it into the remaining ones. The existence of a supernatural god is practically unprovable by definition. On the other hand, we know that gender discrimination happens. We know that it has happened in the past. We know that we have subconscious and conscious attitudes that may lead us to believe that women are not just physically weaker than men, but possibly psychologically too. In order for feminists to have a valid point, they need only demonstrate that there is doubt that the wage gap is FULLY explained by non-discriminatory causes, and, as I've said, this doubt always exists.<br /><br />To summarize, the issue of whether the wage gap "exists" isn't one that interests me. It fundamentally misses the point. The point is that discrimination can and does happen. We need to keep doing these studies and we need to realize whether you're feminist, anti-feminist or indifferent, that the wage gap isn't a weapon to use against the other side, but a tool to help vanquish the discrimination that we all agree shouldn't happen.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-16985407224082838032016-01-04T10:44:00.001-08:002016-01-04T10:44:15.804-08:00On New Year's ResolutionsHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Also, happy new year.<br /><br />I'm uploading a video while typing this and the two things are related. The video was surprisingly hard to make. Back when I was still living with my parents (from 2 years ago onward), I got overheard making videos twice. They didn't know what I was doing, and still don't, but it permanently affected how I made videos from that point on. I've given many excuses about why I don't make videos, and many of them are true, but fear in general plays a large part. Moreover, this fear is only tiny portion of a much larger reservoir of fear that affects my life.<br /><br />I've met 2 people from YouTube. I was unusually talkative around them, but mostly I don't talk much at all. I've found that the "rules" set by my fear work like this: I can respond to questions people ask. I can respond in conversations as long as I'm loosely within the same topic. In the 10 years that have passed since I discovered this fear (I'll explain about that later), I have improved by being able to say hi to people, parrot back questions about how they're doing by asking how they're doing, and I would say I'm almost normal online with people I know well. There is still, however, much work to be done.<br /><br />As for making videos, the neighbours I have in the flat closest to me are very loud. I can hear them talking all the time. This makes me self-conscious about the fact that they can probably hear me, calling to mind the situation I mentioned earlier about my parents. I had to face that fear to make the video. In addition, it is a video which I can practically guarantee will receive backlash as it is, at least in part, defending a feminist view. While I have always encouraged constructive criticism, and always will, less constructive criticism has affected my attitude to making videos in the past, most notably and recently, concerning the hypotheticals I posited about rewiring the brain. There were 2 videos: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzss26VkyTY">one about the use of the technology on prisoners</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjtlrDvDy4E">the other about improving yourself</a>. This was met by particularly strong criticism: they claimed I didn't understand the neuroscience (although no further explanation was given), they opposed the technology on ethical grounds, and they pointed to suffering as something that is to be admired for its ability to build character, whereas the technology could bypass this process.<br /><br />Clearly, this fear is toxic to my attempts to make videos, something that I continue to maintain that I want to do. This is why my one resolution for this year is to dismantle all of these fears, and to give myself the psychological tools to prevent it from returning. A lot of resolutions fail either because the original goal was too lofty, progress wasn't happening quick enough regardless, the routine of doing this new thing you don't really want to do (you only want the end benefits) becomes impossible to commit to, or you just like pizza and burgers too much. This isn't a resolution in the traditional sense. I want to overcome this fear but, more importantly, I NEED to. Each day that passes is another day that I've wasted due to this, and, now that we are arguably in the "late 2010s", I am inarguably in my late 20s. The idea of becoming 30 and to still be afflicted by this is unacceptable. That is why the fear must not survive another year. I wouldn't simply "quite like" to lose this fear the way people would "quite like" to lose a few pounds. I MUST DO IT. I will not accept failure. I'm posting this here to hold my future self accountable. From personal experience, there is no question I will feel like I want to give up. It is then that I read to myself the following passage:<br /><br />"You are 26. Possibly even 27. With each passing day, another possibility is out of reach because you didn't commit now. Your fear is irrational. You know better than that fear. I am you on a better day telling you here and now that you are not done. You will not do this to us. You will continue. This is not just self-help advice you came up with on the spot, this is what you need to drill into your head right now to regain your belief that you can do this. Your 30-something self, your 40-something self, and everything after that depends on you taking this fear to the ground now. Don't let these future selves look back at you with regret and shame. Make the difference now."<br /><br />Since my return I promised to hack that return so that I would stay back. There have been lapses but I have still made videos and posted here. I must continue to do that, and this post is the end result of some of that self-hacking. I will continue in 2016. The Orygyn at the end of the year has always been different to the Orygyn at the beginning, and that will be more true of this year than any of the previous 8. I am, as of this moment, singularly focused on that being the case.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-62113505791717412932015-12-27T14:13:00.001-08:002015-12-27T14:13:24.749-08:00All Power To OtherkinHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Quick but mandatory disclaimer, I am not an otherkin myself. I just don't judge people for decisions they make about their lives that don't affect mine. If you don't already, you should try it some time. It's great! :)<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABSyCmvq4IY">TheAmazingAtheist recently made a video about otherkin.</a>&nbsp;Basically these are people who either partially or entirely identify as other animals. There are of course nuances to this: some people do it out of a supernaturally-based belief in reincarnation, others simply recognize something within themselves that they only see in other animals. To me, this is quite intuitive. We're all animals, our brains are broadly similar, and we all have the same evolutionary purposes: survive and reproduce. It's easy to see how people can make the connection between the emotions and traits they see in themselves and those in other animals. As an atheist, I can't get behind the "reincarnation" aspect for those otherkin for whom this applies, but the rest isn't that hard to grasp.<br /><br />TJ's video is very patronizing towards otherkin. Of course, this isn't that unexpected: a new or unfamiliar idea will go through stages whereby it is first ridiculed, then gains some acceptance, to which there is a backlash, then finally wider acceptance. Or it'll never get past the first stage. I think otherkin will become an accepted idea, but it'll take a while. Let me explain.<br /><br />As a kid, I watched a lot of cartoons. One that I saw a lot of was Batman of the Future (Batman Beyond in America), a Batman series set in the future where Bruce Wayne has retired and he is mentoring a kid called Terry to take over from him. There is one episode where the kids at Terry's school (Terry being the new Batman) <a href="http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Splicers">get genetic treatments to give themselves the physiological traits of other animals: fur, fangs, tails, wings etc</a>. This is presented in the show as a school fad, and leads to problems for Batman, but the idea may not be far off becoming reality. We're already splicing genes. Who's to say we couldn't one day do this for real? Another interesting perspective on this is offered by the Orion's Arm project and their concepts of <a href="http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45beaa73c347e">rianths</a>, <a href="http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45bea63ba86eb">provolves</a> and <a href="http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45beac611ad40">splices</a>. In their fictional vision of the future, the modification of genomes is so easy, so uncontroversial and so widespread, that a panoply of different combinations of different animals and different levels of sentience and intelligence, ranging from a baseline animal of a particular type to hyperintelligence (orders of magnitude beyond human) exist without significant conflict or unease. Otherkin are the first step along this path. Supporting them is, in my mind, extremely socially progressive. It is to support an idea decades or even centuries ahead of its time. Far more importantly, however, defending the impetus of otherkin to be themselves is just a decent thing to do.<br /><br />As I eluded to in my first paragraph, their views on themselves don't affect your life in any way. Nothing about their identities precludes them from being caring friends, hard workers, creative thinkers, motivated go-getters, and otherwise all-round decent people any more than does their skin colour, sexual orientation or gender identity. It is something that, with the right attitude, simply becomes nothing more than another eccentricity, just like your tendency to rant about drug policy while drunk, or my tendency to respond to everything anyone says to me with "yeh" and nothing more.<br /><br />The only counter-argument to this worth even mentioning is that "if I choose to be friends or associate with this person who identifies as otherkin, people won't just shun THEM, they'll shun me as well", to which I say simply this: FIND BETTER PEOPLE. They're shunning of you is even less credible than their shunning of otherkin. This of course ignores the fact that there are an endless number of situations in which there is simply no obligation or need to even MENTION the fact that you have a friend or acquaintance like this.<br /><br />There is a loftier message here: too often we get on with other people based on condemnation of others. I do not judge people for quirks or eccentricities they may possess that have no effect on my life, but still I have a bad habit of being suggestible in conversation, and I can end up building on another's bad-mouthing just so that we have SOMETHING to talk about. This speaks to my flaws as a conversationalist and a sheep in certain contexts, under certain pressures, and is something I'm constantly working on. I understand this allure, but we can still hold ourselves to an ideal where the judging of these people, either through our thoughts, words or actions is not something we should condone. We should get on with each other based on our interests, our philosophies, our feelings and our ideas, not on our qualms with others. This is the thought with which I'll leave you today.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-47855528044378534462015-12-08T16:04:00.002-08:002015-12-08T16:04:30.546-08:00Islam and TerrorismHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />I'm posting this as a reaction to a video by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJQxZbZlKAY">ghostofdayinperson</a>. I say reaction because I've wanted to say something about this for a while, but how to approach it eluded me. The things she mentions in her video work well enough for this purpose. The topic in question is Islam, and the extent of its role in terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11.<br /><br />I'm deliberately not calling this a "response" as this is quite an angry video. Vloggers tend to make a range of different types of videos, and occasionally something riles them up. Many people then pick on that video when there are more substantial and calmer ones out there. This is not one of those videos, so I want it to be clear that this isn't a critique of her position or the video. I don't know her position in detail. All I'm giving here is mine, using her comments as a framework.<br /><br /><b>ISLAM AS A RELIGION OF PEACE</b><br /><b><br /></b>Critics of this re-occurring claim by Muslims point to the terrorist attacks and the violent past of its adherents. One of the arguments you would've heard in our community back in the day, and gotten sick of, was that there are numerous contradictions in the Bible, giving rise to all the various interpretations and sects. The Qur'an shares much of the Bible's material and so is no different. In fact, the books don't even have to be contradictory. Human beings are complex: they can be peaceful one moment and violent the next, and these human qualities are captured in the stories. Most Muslims here in the West do not support the attacks and there are numerous examples of people speaking out about it: we are always challenged to give examples in situations like this, but since all you need to do to get page after page of examples is type "muslim reaction to paris attacks" into Google, I think we can skip that here. I will single out <a href="http://time.com/4112830/muslims-paris-terror-attacks-islam-condemn/">this TIME article</a> if you're a special kind of lazy. Two interpretations, one religion. It's the interpretation put forward by groups like Al-Qaeda and Daesh that is the main concern.<br /><br />Now, as an atheist, I know where ghost is coming from. Several people, myself included, argued vehemently against religion in general back in the day, and I stand by the vast majority of my views. When you put your faith in a religion, much of your worldview will derive from it, and since religion requires faith, having a worldview based on a premise that admits to requiring blind faith is something I find highly suspect. The deity is the most worrying part, as it gives people the imagined "moral authority" to carry out attacks like the ones we've been discussing. This is true of any belief involving imagined authority figures. In other words, Islam isn't "special". It also neither is nor isn't a religion of peace. This is a category error. As a religion in practice depends on the actions of it's followers, it is the followers who make it either a religion of peace, or the "death cult" ghost describes it as. When we weigh in on either side of this debate, we elevate one interpretation over another in our minds. This is the wrong approach. Instead, the first part of our strategy should be to support the adherents of the interpretation we prefer to represent Islam.<br /><br />Some might ask "why would we support Muslims at all, we don't agree with their worldview?" Well, it's not going away anytime soon. However, we absolutely should make positive arguments about how rejecting religion and embracing things like the scientific method and open-mindedness as a means to derive your worldview allows you to begin from a premise free of assumptions counter to our everyday reality, on which you can construct a worldview designed to strengthen itself against rationality. We highlight the immense satisfaction that new experiences, the application of reason, and gaining an understanding of the, at times, extremely counter-intuitive reality of the physical world can give us. We also accept that any decline in religion will still take time and we have to address the issues of the present. The weeding out of the "evil" interpretations of Islam is something that has to come from within the religion, by the adherents. Any group more highly values the opinions of its own members than "outsiders". We must recognize that moderates are already going out of their way to condemn the terrorists because, apart from them committing acts universally recognized as abominable, the media attention this generates causes them to be feared, hated, and sometimes attacked themselves. We MUST sympathize with them on this point, further encourage them to speak out against the terrorists, but most importantly, we need to strengthen, not further erode, our relations with them. In my experience on YouTube, I think I can confidently say that the best way to destroy erroneous assumptions about a group or person, and to have them take your views seriously, is to become friends with them. I should also mention, I'm not thinking of this as a tactical ploy, it's a genuine attempt to get to know people so that hostilities die and a meaningful exchange of ideas becomes possible. You probably won't get them to renounce religion, but it's hard to hate an ideology your friend is a part of.<br /><br /><b>WE ARE DELUSIONAL ABOUT DEFENDING ISLAM</b><br /><b><br /></b>Plenty I've said above should make that untrue for me. There are almost definitely people out there who have very little understanding of the issues, and are defending Islam and Muslims out of knee-jerk sympathy, but I am going to make my position crystal clear: I will defend ANY Muslim who doesn't support the views of groups like ISIS on this issue. There will be things we disagree on enormously, but a Muslim who just wants to live their life in peace and not be associated with any of this shit deserves the basic level of respect that they can have that peace and lack of association. We too easily lose sight of the fact that innocent people get caught in our vitriol.<br /><br /><b>WE'RE BLAMING THE WEST FOR THE ACTIONS OF ISLAM</b><br /><b><br /></b>Among ISIS as well, yes, I at least am blaming the West too, because WE VERY CLEARLY PLAYED OUR PART IN THIS.<br /><br />Imagine this as a game of chess. If you think only about your next move, your understanding of the situation will be this.<br /><br />ATTACKED<br /><i><br /></i><i>ATTACK</i><br /><br />This ignores ISIS' strategy entirely. They want a global caliphate, and they are counting on us attacking them so that they can use the collateral damage to garner sympathy for their cause which they can use to recruit more members. ISIS' "chessgame" looks something like this:<br /><br />ATTACK<br /><br /><i>WESTERN LEADERS FORCED TO CONDUCT BOMBINGS DUE TO NOT LOOKING WEAK OR LIKE ENABLERS OF TERRORISM IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY</i><br /><br />BOMB INEVITABLY KILLS INNOCENT SYRIANS, USE AS PROPAGANDA FOR CAUSE AND RECRUIT MORE MEMBERS, ATTACK<br /><br /><i>FEAR OF HOME-GROWN TERRORISM STIRS UP MORE ANTI-MUSLIM FEAR FROM MEDIA CAUSING YET BIGGER BACKLASH, CAUSING OTHERWISE INNOCENT MUSLIMS TO FEEL MARGINALIZED AND FORCING THEM AGAINST US IN ORDER THAT THEY CAN FEEL SAFE</i><br /><i><br /></i>CONTINUED ATTACKS DESTABILIZE COUNTRY, ESTABLISH CALIPHATE<br /><br />We can see 2 things very clearly: first, ISIS are thinking several steps ahead, and second, we can see just how vital it is that we don't play into their hands by stirring up rhetoric about the evils of Islam, as we are just handing them more potential recruits and subjecting our countries to yet more terrorism. So yes, we the West are at fault. I'll say it again: WE ARE AT FUCKING FAULT! If atheists are really so much more rational, we need to accept this basic fact as not doing so means being embarrassingly outwitted by the very people we claim to be more rational than.<br /><br />The "chessgame" above serves to demonstrate why I feel my approach is effective: this is about the supremacy of ideas. We need to be living, breathing paragons of the virtues of the West, demonstrating that we do not accept killing, we argue civilly, and we are open-minded and friendly, willing to accept anyone as our friend, and defeat our enemies on mental rather than physical battlefields.<br /><br /><b>WE ARE UNWILLING TO ADMIT ISLAM IS THE PROBLEM</b><br /><b><br /></b>Islam is not the problem. As I've said, that doesn't even make sense. The Qur'an, and the "divine authority" its adherents claim to get from it, are tools used by some to enforce select morals from the book on others. It is essential we understand these nuances and use it to target our criticisms, or we alienate all Muslims who don't want anything to do with these people, cause them to hate us, and wonder why we haven't eradicated religion yet.<br /><br />It's not weak to be smart. Calling Islam in general the problem is just dumb and can ONLY result in us being ineffective and therefore weak. We are not denying the problem, we have a more nuanced understanding of it. We see the people behind the labels and the moves ahead of our own moves. We see a solution, while others are sleepwalking with silver platters to ISIS. I, through what I'm doing on this blog and on my YouTube channel, am seeking to be part of the solution. You don't need to be that, you can be indifferent if you like. Don't, though, be part of the problem.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-46400424335981802442015-12-02T13:10:00.003-08:002015-12-02T13:27:35.887-08:00Atheist Response to CARM's "Questions For Atheists"Hi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />When I started making videos and writing blog posts, they mostly centered around my views as an atheist. As shocking as this revelation is, it's been a while. Since TJ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TZrGQwfs4w">made a video addressing questions posed to atheists</a>&nbsp;by Matt Slick of the Christian Apologetics &amp; Research Ministry, I thought I'd do them as well to see where I stand now. Here's <a href="https://carm.org/questions-for-atheists">the article </a>for the full list.<br /><br /><b><i><u>1. How would you define atheism?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>First, I like the way this question is phrased. Not "what is the definition of atheism", but rather, how would I define it. I've written and talked endlessly about how people hold up definitions on pedestals and how this generates drama. WE define words. They're not just ethereally defined and we have to use them that way. What we're really arguing about is how the word SHOULD be defined, and I'm guessing people work in the concept of "the definition" to try and grant their definition more authority.<br /><br />But anyway...<br /><br />Atheism, to me, is the philosophical stance of not believing in any gods, or flat out rejecting their existence. There are qualifiers, some which act as independent stances as well, such as "agnostic" (not knowing whether gods exist), "gnostic" (knowing they do or knowing they don't, or claiming to at least), and "ignostic" (rejecting that the term "god" can even be defined adequately enough to even have a discussion about belief in or knowledge of them). I would describe myself as an ignostic, agnostic atheist: I don't believe in any gods, however I can't say for a fact they don't exist, but the definitions given for current gods are too disputed and vague to make an accurate assessment in the first place. Many people will use 1 of those words to describe themselves and reject the others. I accept all 3.<br /><br /><b><i><u>2. Do you act according to what you believe (there is no God) in or what you don't believe in (lack belief in God)?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>By comparison, I find this question far less well phrased. I don't believe there is no god as I'm not a "gnostic atheist" (see above). My actions would have to derive from the non-belief, insofar as they actually can.<br /><br />A lot of people at this point would make some statements like "atheism is a belief in the same way as not collecting stamps is a hobby", and while I agree, atheism shares one characteristic with beliefs: it informs the way you live your life far more profoundly than a non-hobby by virtue of religion's influence in society. Many atheists actively seek to minimize this influence and, when I started on YouTube, I leaned towards this point of view too. While I still think religion causes a lot of problems, taking the idea too much to heart has issues too. One of the main reasons the atheist community died was the massive rift that opened up after discussions about Islam became the dominant topic on YouTube. Because of the actions of some fundamentalists, and because things like 9/11, 7/7 and the Madrid bombings were still too fresh in people's minds, people went to town on Islam, and didn't shy away from painting all Muslims as terrorists or sympathizers. I couldn't go along with this, and neither could many others. My view is that while religion may cause more harm on balance than good, religion is still practiced by human beings with thoughts and feelings, and so &nbsp;the best way to interact with them is on this level. Have conversations with them, get to know them, be honest about what you believe, and pay attention to what they believe too. In the end, we judge people on their character, not their ideas. Of course their ideas will influence their character, but character is responsible for actions, and they always carry more weight.<br /><br /><b><i><u>3. Do you think it is inconsistent for someone who "lacks belief" in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show God doesn't exist?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>I have a few qualms with this question. First, I'm not trying to show that God doesn't exist. A complete lack of evidence points in the direction of that conclusion just fine. Secondly, I can't make any sense of the question. What does it mean to "work against God's existence"? The author is Christian so they obviously believe in God, but the question seems to presuppose God exists from the get go. Nevertheless I still can't fathom, even given the premise that the question presupposes God exists, how it could be viewed as inconsistent from ANY perspective to try to demonstrate he doesn't. It goes back to the question of whether you KNOW there is or isn't a god. In my case, I don't know, so it's perfectly consistent for me to test hypotheses until I arrive at some conclusion, if I ever do.<br /><br /><b><i><u>4. How sure are you that your atheism properly represents reality?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>I'm going to give an answer that will seem at face value very interesting to the religious: 0%. I am not sure at all. I am also 0% sure God exists. I'm 0% sure Allah exists. I'm 0% sure Zeus, Apollo, Thor and King Kai exist. Going further, the question is unanswerable through empirical means. In the face of this total uncertainty, what do you do? Well, I disagree with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager">Blaise Pascal</a>: if you assume the Christian God exists just to maximize your chances of getting into heaven, what if there is a god, who's just as selective about the eligibility of his/her followers for admittance into heaven based on their belief in him/her? How could you ever possibly know who's right? Since most people inherit their religious beliefs from their family/friends/wider culture, are some people doomed to some version of hell through nothing other than accident of birth? No, I believe in living your life according to rules that are based on things which are DEFINITELY grounded in reality: empathy and logic.<br /><br /><b><i><u>5. How sure are you that your atheism is correct?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>I fail to see any significant difference between this question and the last.<br /><br /><b><i><u>6. How would you define what truth is?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>Here we go! As I said before, we define words. As such, truth is a word we've used to describe a concept we don't fully understand, so it follows that the term isn't well defined (you could say I'm "ignostic" about truth :D). However, I'm not going to dodge the question:<br /><br />A statement can be logically true: 1+1=2. However, even this could be subverted. "2" is a symbol used to describe a concept: there is two of something. What if that symbol was changed to mean "three of something"? The statement is only true because the underlying semantic content is a tautology. That is to say if you have one of something, then another of that same thing, you have one of something and another of it.<br /><br />The use of the word "truth" by human beings must also be taken in the context of their limitations. By the standards of a lie detector, you would be telling the truth if you were simply able to convince the lie detector that you BELIEVED what you were saying to be true. In addition, if you're telling the truth about something you saw happen, that depends on your vision, your memory, and, to really melt the brains, whether reality is as we perceive it.<br /><br />This is why I can be precisely 0% sure of my atheism and the existence of any deity. We don't, and can't, know what truth actually is.<br /><br /><b><i><u>7. Why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>Finally, my maths degree comes in handy. Atheism is the "null hypothesis" on the question of the existence of gods. To prove another hypothesis, you would need to prove, as a minimum, the existence of the deity in question. Atheism is what we inevitably fall back on when that task fails.<br /><br /><b><i><u>8. Are you a materialist or a physicalist or what?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><br /></i></b>I will use CARM's definitions here:<br /><br /><i>Materialist</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>A materialist atheist is someone who assumes that the physical universe and its properties are all that exist and that nothing exists outside of the material world, and this necessarily means that a transcendent God cannot exist.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Physicalist</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Physicalism is the proposition that all that exists does so within the limitations of the physical <a href="https://carm.org/dictionary-universe">universe</a>&nbsp;and that there are no other kinds of things other than the physical and things derived from the physical realm whether they be forms of energy, motion, or thought.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Yes and yes, but with an important point. This view derives from science which is constantly evolving. What constitutes the physical world changes as science discovers something new. If we were able to show that a god exists, then the god, and everything they were capable of, would be a "material" or "physical" entity from that point on.<br /><br /><b><i><u>9.&nbsp;Do you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview?&nbsp;Why or why not?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>I think here a lot of atheists would end up conflating "belief" and "worldview" as there is vocal opposition to calling it a "belief". However, I have no problem calling it a worldview in that it makes a statement about the state of affairs in the universe: namely that I don't believe in any gods.<br /><br /><b><i><u>10. Not all atheists are antagonistic to Christianity but for those of you who are, why the antagonism?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>I'd like to think I'm among the "not antagonistic" atheists. I won't shove my beliefs down other people's throat. If someone asks me what my position is I'll tell them, and I'm happy to talk in detail about these beliefs, but I'm not going to just go off on one whenever I feel like it.<br /><br />As to why others are, I've been doing this long enough that I don't need to speculate. There are atheists living all over the world who have been marginalized by their more religious family members, friends, teachers, governments etc. Some are shunned, some are fired, and some are even executed. The antagonism is a reaction to, or even a defense mechanism against, this persecution. Even on the less horrific side of this scale, an atheist still has no chance of becoming US President, are still on similar footing to rapists in terms of how well they are trusted, and, as an unfortunate consequence of our activities on the internet, we have recently become stereotyped as intolerant and loud-mouthed.<br /><br />My response to this is that people on both sides should make an effort to get to know PEOPLE on the rival side. As I said in my answer to question 2, character is what matters.<br /><br /><b><i><u>11.&nbsp;If you were at one time a believer in the Christian God, what caused you to deny His existence?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>I'm not sure if I ever was. I was very loosely raised Christian in the sense that I was taught about heaven and hell, baptized, and that was about it. It wasn't an important part of my immediate family at any point. There were several events that led me away from Christianity.<br /><br />The first time I ever properly understood death was when seeing it happen on an episode of Casualty when I was 6. I was with my Gran and I was so upset that I begged for my Mum to come back. I think I had the picture in my head before that it was a bit more like a video game: the moment of death would happen and you'd just sprout wings and fly up to heaven :)<br /><br />The second was in high school when I was 14. I'd already gone over questions like this in my head but it crystallized when a substitute teacher took one of our assemblies and said "God has a plan for you" then shortly after, "God loves you". For me, the 2 concepts didn't fit. God's plan had to include people who never live to adulthood, people with debilitating diseases, and people born into extreme poverty. If he loved us, why would he EVER do that to anyone? It all unraveled from there: his "omni" character traits can't co-exist, the Jesus story doesn't make any sense at all, and there's no evidence for god. I'll come to that last one later as there's a question on it.<br /><br /><b><i><u>12. Do you believe the world would be better off without religion?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>It's difficult. My instinct is "yes", but religion does provide some benefits for some people, and there's plenty of evidence of people not being very pleasant without it.<br /><br />Religious texts tend to be contradictory. The result of this is that schools of thought develop as to which interpretations are true, and which passages are more important. Most schools of thought, especially nowadays, emphasize the positive parts ("love thy neighbour", for example). We do, however. also have the Westboro Baptist Church and ISIS.<br /><br />For me, I think the major benefit of a religion-free world is the necessity of grounding your positions in terms of what can be proven to be real. If someone's arguing against genetic modification, we know it's not because they think we'd be "playing god".<br /><br /><b><i><u>13. Do you believe the world would be better off without Christianity?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>It certainly has a dark past: the Crusades, witch hunts, the Nazis (sorry, "Gott Mit Uns" is pretty conclusive) and the aforementioned Westboro Baptist Church. My answer, I guess, follows the same path as the last question.<br /><br /><b><i><u>14. Do you believe that faith in a God or gods is a mental disorder?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>If we're being technical, no. It's not in the DSM V. It wouldn't be anyway: it's a symptom at best. It might qualify as a delusion (you can thank Dawkins for that), but I don't agree with this either. A delusion is perceiving something we KNOW doesn't exist. As I've said above, God is unknowable, so he doesn't qualify.<br /><br /><b><i><u>15. Must God be known through the scientific method?</u></i></b><br /><br />I guess the idea here is that the scientific method is used to verify his existence. Here's the problem: once probed far enough, most believers assert that god is in some way supernatural. Take a trait like omnipotence: how would you verify this? You could ask him to demonstrate his power, but how could we ever perceive, let alone verify, infinite power? That's assuming he'd agree to be our lab rat at all. That's the conundrum with God, in order to prove his existence, you would have to rule out ALL natural explanations for whatever "evidence" is presented. This alone is impossible, but verifying something infinite takes it to a whole other realm of unfathomably hopeless.<br /><br />God's existence is asserted in a gap that is impossible to fill: the state of defining an entity whose traits are impossible to prove or disprove.<br /><br /><b><i><u>16. If you answered yes to the previous question, then how do you avoid a category mistake by requiring material evidence for an immaterial God?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>10 steps ahead of you :) My philosophy, and the philosophy of most atheists I know, depends on being able to verify the material existence of something. Positing God isn't an achievement here, as he's every bit as impossible to prove as he is to disprove.<br /><br /><b><i><u>17. Do we have any purpose as human beings?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>We evolved on Earth over billions of years. Processes don't have plans. We have to decide what we do with the time we have.<br /><br /><b><i><u>18. If we do have purpose, can you as an atheist please explain how that purpose is determined?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>Let me pose a thought experiment to any religious people watching. Assume that there is no possibility whatsoever of getting into heaven when you die, you will instead be going to hell. There is nothing you could do or say to God to get him to change his mind. How would you live your life? What would you do? I'm not conflating non-existence of the mind with hell here, it's just so that you can more easily put yourself in our shoes. Because we don't believe in a god, our values and desires, which arise through the natural upbringing and environment of our daily lives, guide us towards what we want to do with our lives.<br /><br /><b><i><u>19. Where does morality come from?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>It's a by-product of the human mind's ability to make value judgments. If someone hits us, we feel a sensation that we ascribe negative value to. Likewise, if we get a gift, we feel a positive sensation. The final piece of the puzzle is the observation that other people react in similar ways when they experience these actions. This is the blueprint for building morality. However, the nuances are very much up for debate. This will already be a very long post so I won't go into the nuances here, but I am quite drawn to the utilitarian views of ethics: namely that an action can be judged as good or bad in accordance with the pleasure (an umbrella term for all positive emotions) and pain (likewise for negative emotions) these actions bring.<br /><br /><b><i><u>20. Are there moral absolutes?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>This is another question heavily involving semantics. To me, a moral absolute is a statement about the morality of an action that can be objectively true or false. For example, if the phrase "killing people is wrong" is an absolute, this would be a true or false statement. As I've already said, I believe these are simply value judgments. I would go even further; even for theists, there are no moral absolutes, as god's morality is still just his opinion. There is nothing about any of his traits that can transform a judgment into a fact.<br /><br /><b><i><u>21. If there are moral absolutes, could you list a few of them?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>Even though my previous answer makes answering this question redundant, there is still more I could say. While I judge actions by the amount of pleasure or pain they cause, it's important to note that every action causes a different amount of pleasure and pain, and so there are actions which, while they are not absolutes, are ALMOST universally seen as good or bad. Helping the poor may be an example of a significant good, while genocide may be an example of a significant ill.<br /><br /><b><i><u>22. Do you believe there is such a thing as evil? If so, what is it?</u></i></b><br /><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b>If we're talking about an ethereal concept, no. If we're talking about an adjective to describe a person, that's a matter of simply choosing, or not choosing, to use the word. Personally, I do, as it's a simple and widely understood way to describe someone who is doing bad things for no redeemable reason. What I mean by this is that when a lot of people do bad things, they feel like they can justify it. For example, robberies might take place because the perpetrator is very poor or hungry. Rape might take place out of a misunderstanding of what constitutes rape. Even offense is simply caused by the fact that it's far too difficult and exhausting to please everyone, so we just have to be ourselves, follow basic "don't be a dick" rules, but otherwise simply risk that something we do or say will be offensive <span style="font-family: inherit;">to someone. Someone who I would call "evil", on the other hand, is perfectly embodied by Heath Ledger's Joker: someone who commits crimes because it's fun for him, and he likes destruction and pain. Of course, this is an extreme (and fictitious) example, but you get the idea I'm sure.</span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>23. If you believe that the God of the Old Testament is morally bad, by what standard do you judge that He is bad?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u><br /></u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've explained my standard so I'll just get into my opinion of God. This is a being that supposedly created us, and then couldn't understand that we would act freely. He seeks to impose rules on people that he knows will not follow those rules, he has killed people for it, he killed HIS OWN SON on behalf of OTHER PEOPLE doing it, this killing is one of the things he forbids, making him a massive hypocrite, and simply the fact that he created our ability to suffer AT ALL. This means he has knowingly created people who will mostly suffer in their lifetime, and the justification for all of this is "he has a plan". Yes, I think he's bad.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>24. What would it take for you to believe in God?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If you're referring specifically to the Christian god, nothing. He is ill-defined, his traits cannot co-exist, and the possible traits are such that there is no way of proving his existence, as there is no way to rule out all possible natural explanations for his existence.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>25. What would constitute sufficient evidence for God's existence?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I've addressed this. I find it interesting that the traits that God is meant to possess: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipresence make it impossible for God's existence to be proven. It does however make perfect sense if you see it as a way for opportunists to make him immune to disproving.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>26. Must this evidence be rationally based, archaeological, testable in a lab, etc., or what?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">None of that will do any good if the god in question is supernatural, as these methods rely on naturalism.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>27. Do you think that a society that is run by Christians or atheists would be safer? Why?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In terms of how they will turn out in practice, not a clue. I think that an atheist society has the POTENTIAL to be safer though. First, all decisions will be based on things that can be proven (see the 3-person babies example above). Second, religion offers rules to follow. These rules are often far too simplistic, never change, and, most importantly, are aided by the moral weight of an all-powerful authority figure, so transgressing against these rules if you feel they don't make sense, is more difficult. It is especially a problem if we have no reason to believe this figure is all-powerful. An atheist society is free to explore exceptions to rules, and to change with the time. Finally, what few benefits might appear in a religious society (a sense of community, a sense of purpose, and the inspiration religion can impart) can be emulated by an atheist society if a concerted effort is put toward it.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>28. Do you believe in free will? (free will being the ability to make choices without coercion).</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The best answer I can give to this question is I don't know. Gun to the head, I lean towards no, so I'm quite comfortable saying that I don't believe in free will. The reason for these answers is that we don't yet know enough about how the human brain works to describe consciousness in the necessary detail to answer the question, but quantum physics is insufficiently well understood, so in a similar way that God is immune to being disproved by placing him outside nature, free will is impossible to disprove as things stand even within a naturalistic framework, as that framework is incomplete. I lean towards no because, without going to quantum scales, things have causes and effects. It's very possible that we could just be an extremely complex algorithm, following instructions in accordance with the state of our neurons and the stimuli we receive through our senses.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>29. If you believe in free will, do you see any problem with defending the idea that the physical brain, which is limited and subject to the neuro-chemical laws of the brain, can still produce free will choices?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I see you've post-empted the answer to my last question :D</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I don't believe in free will as I said. I don't see any reason why an algorithm can't create a sense of self, give that self self-awareness, and give it the illusion of choice. AI researches haven't been able to create anything like that yet, but I think it's only a matter of time.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>30. If you affirm evolution and that the universe will continue to expand forever, then do you think it is probable that given enough time, brains would evolve to the point of exceeding mere physical limitations and become free of the physical and temporal, and thereby become "deity" and not be restricted by space and time? If not, why not?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">You just made the sci-fi geek inside me very happy :)</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So first off, I don't think this can happen by evolution alone. We are restricted by the possibilities of combining adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine (the 4 DNA bases). As our ability to manipulate ever smaller matter increases with our technological capabilities, and as our understanding of science grows, a human race resembling the 5-dimensional beings in Interstellar could be possible. There is a futurist, by the name of Ray Kurzweil, who believes that we could be capable of this before the end of this century. By the way, this guy works for Google, who take his predictions very seriously.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Regardless of how long it will take, short of an apocalyptic event (I'm not talking about the Rapture here necessarily; a standard meteor, climate change or superbug will do just fine), we will reach a point where we're using technology based on science we can't even imagine today. However, this will still be within the physical universe as, by definition, everything that we can describe around us constitutes the physical universe. As for temporal, we currently understand time to be an inherent quality of the universe, although Einstein showed us that it is malleable if you're a fan of enormous speed. Maybe there's more to it and if there is, we'll understand it in time.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><u>31. If you answered the previous question in the affirmative, then aren't you saying that it is probable that some sort of God exists?</u></i></b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It really depends what you call a god. If we discovered in the distant future that the laws of logic weren't absolute, only then would it be possible for the Christian god to exist. Short of that, THAT god isn't possible. However, if a god is simply a being of vastly superior ability and intellect, and again, if we aren't wiped out before then, we are practically destined to become that. Technology will keep marching forward, and humans will keep wanting to better ourselves. When we no longer have to restrict ourselves to the capabilities of our brains, then things get really interesting!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">8&lt;{D-</div>Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-19198615904825713052015-12-01T13:34:00.000-08:002015-12-01T13:34:15.058-08:005madheathens and The New Breakfast ClubHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Before you do anything else, I would really appreciate it if you check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_PT7MX0__APn9ImvyQvXBA">this YouTube channel</a>. No, I'm not in any way involved with it. It's just a new channel that I've come to subscribe to. It's a collab channel in which 7 YouTubers upload videos talking about something. Most are remnants of, or channels springing from the ashes of, what used to be the YouTube atheist community, if you believe there ever was such a thing. This is the 2nd incarnation of a collab channel of this name, the 1st one being shut down due to drama that occurred on the channel. I don't know what happened, as I was never subscribed to that version of it. Paul (YouTube user "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/gothatfunk">gothatfunk</a>"), a member of the first incarnation, created the 2nd around the same idea but emphasized his unwillingness to let the new version succumb to drama. This is what I want to focus on in this post. I'm writing this from the perspective of someone who was in a collab channel.<br /><br />Back in "ought-nine", I was in a collab channel called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/5madheathens">5madheathens</a>. This was a similar idea, except sticking to weekdays and focusing on mainly philosophical topics. Now, before I go any further, the channel did not succumb to drama. No-one, to my knowledge at least, fell out over anything to do with the channel. None of the others have uploaded videos recently, but, in my last interactions with everyone involved, we were all on good terms. I did learn lessons though, which I hope can benefit the new Breakfast Club, and anyone else who is likely to participate in a collab channel in the future.<br /><br />5madheathens had a number of lineup changes during its existence. I came in on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0q34gB4GTo">episode 32</a>. The way our channel worked was that we would take it in turns to pose a question to the rest of the members, and we would then answer it on our set day. After it got back to the person posing the question, he or she would then give their own take on the subject and, usually, say something about the others' responses. When I joined the channel, the subject was "What Do You Fear". Now, due to the format of the channel, confronting each others viewpoints was pretty much essential. People would commonly express their own opinions by comparing them with others, focusing on how theirs differed from the others. This is where my greatest lesson will come from.<br /><br />The standard of discussion was very high. The majority of times someone mentioned others, it was to praise the things they'd said. With the exception of the person who referred me (and I'm not watching all 100+ videos to see if there was a time) I'm struggling to think of a single instance in which my views were praised. They were mostly criticized. I must emphasize here that I don't feel like I was singled out, and I don't have any resentment towards any of the members for any reason. My intelligence, however great or small it is, is something that matters to me greatly. I think I was just the idiot of the group.<br /><br />I had a look at some of my videos on the channel and the ones I saw were cringe-worthy. I was just shy of 20. I was still relatively new to YouTube, and I was very much in my "badly rip-off the dynamic and manic style of the most famous YouTubers" phase. It did quite well in terms of viewership but, as pop stars repeatedly teach us by example, highest numbers don't mean best. A lot of the discussions involved debating the meaning of certain words like "love", "lie", "life" etc. and I've never been that great at, or even interested in, semantic discussions. In fact, my question "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAhACmZEuQQ">how reliable is language</a>" can be interpreted as a veiled challenge to this. Still, I didn't do that much better on the other questions either.<br /><br />Because of all this, and I don't think I've mentioned this to anyone before, the later episodes of the channel were almost like torture. Because my intelligence mattered so much to me, as it still does, I became consumed with constructing responses that were more insightful. Mostly, however, this just led me to making really stupid comments: one of the worst was when we were talking about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kUlHE5lYoY">how often we lie</a>. At the time, I was at university, I had very few friends there, and I wasn't that talkative in general, so even with my family, I didn't say very much. What I did was to be absurdly literal and take comments like "there's nothing on" (my brother was asking what was on TV) as examples, and, of course, I was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_DtEUmgUfE">called out</a>. I got more and more disenchanted with the channel, but I don't think I ever said anything. The channel fizzled out before I did say anything, as most people were not in a position to commit to weekly videos.<br /><br />So what's the lesson? On a collab channel based on sharing ideas, criteria that both 5madheathens and The Breakfast Club meet, there will be disagreements. All of the Breakfast Club members understand this premise. They will also have insecurities that could lead to them being too competitive about the level of insight of their views, too emotionally invested in a particular view that can be challenged, or they may even have triggers. The Breakfast Club, by its very nature, consists of diverse members (other than their loose affiliation with the atheist community), and so maximizes the extent to which these insecurities can generate drama. Depending on the personalities of the participants, they could get expressed very vocally, or in a more passive-aggressive way (you could argue my 5madheathens video "how reliable is language" is an example of this), or through silent seething until it all comes out at once.<br /><br />I am excited about the future of the Breakfast Club and I want it to succeed. I hope nothing I've said here gives anyone the opposite impression. I'm writing this post to make the point that it may not be the ideas themselves that generate drama and so it's not enough to just agree to be civil. That's a good step of course. What's better still is to take The Oracle's advice: know thyself. Know what pisses you off. Know what you deeply care about. Know what traits you value and despise in yourself and others. And when it comes to your ideas, know your shit (my mistake with 5madheathens was a grammatical misunderstanding of this maxim: "know you're shit"), but not to the point that it becomes a competition.<br /><br />Remember, none of you have simple minds.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-35720871906662586082015-11-21T09:10:00.002-08:002015-11-21T09:10:56.621-08:00Why We Romanticize NatureHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />I've posted less than normal due to overtime at work. Ah well.<br /><br />You'll have heard people, when arguing about all sorts of things, say something like "That's not natural." It may be valid, it may not. Here's the question though: why do we appeal to nature to begin with? What do we find so brilliant about nature that we invoke it as an attempted all-encompassing shut down of our opponents?<br /><br />Let me start with my "feel-good" answer:<br /><br />Nature is essentially our mother, hence the phrase "mother nature". It made humanity's existence possible, it is almost without exception entirely responsible for our food supply, and it carved out the rocks and caves which we first used as shelter back in the day. It's not perfect though: it also created lions, tigers and bears, and, while we may find them impressive and/or beautiful, they can still kill us. Like any parent, it has its flaws, but we learn to appreciate what it did for us. We invest in it and so we end up putting it on a pedestal, explaining away its flaws and focusing on its achievements. Any alternative, therefore, starts out at a disadvantage by having to fight against this emotional bias.<br /><br />This is a "feel-good" answer because it may be true for us as we reflect on it later, but there's a glaring issue: the fact that it requires this reflection. A better answer, I think, is found in its near synonymy with "normal". Something that isn't normal is unfamiliar, weird, <b>unnatural</b>, and not to be trusted. This makes it a very powerful emotional appeal in favour of something you like, or against something you don't.<br /><br />What's the point of this post? If I ever use this appeal, unsubscribe, vote me down, whatever, because I'm beyond saving.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-84370237998539737042015-11-15T16:50:00.001-08:002015-11-15T16:50:11.356-08:00New Shapeways StoreHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Some of you know about my other YouTube channel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/AxyssTV">AxyssTV</a>. As a result of aiming to make music videos for my songs (as you can see from the one whole video I did manage to make it never really took off), I dabbled in 3D modelling. I discovered a site called Shapeways in the past year and I've become quite interested in the idea of producing models to print them. This has the potential to get me out of the rut that I've been in when it's come to creative projects and maybe give the Axyss project, now 10 years old, a new lease of life. Here's a link to the only model I currently have:<br /><br /><a href="http://shpws.me/KNjM">http://shpws.me/KNjM</a><br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-90419618016878791192015-11-15T10:53:00.000-08:002015-11-15T10:53:06.411-08:00Nothing But Mind GamesHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />There have been quite a few attacks over the last few years. An inordinate amount in the Middle East. A few in the West, one quite recently. The Joker was right, when it's not part of the plan, everyone loses their minds, and it's not "part of the plan" for attacks like this to happen in the West. What "part of the plan" really means of course is that when something horrific is a routine occurrence, we can't invest constantly in all of the tragedies, but when one happens in a place we think is safe, stable, even friendly, those 3 traits are suddenly challenged, so we react. This is what we're seeing with Paris: all the French flag photos, the scapegoating of Muslims, the people (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) condemning these generalizations, and the inhabitants of unstable countries outraged that an attack not in their region is getting so much more coverage than they ever will.<br /><br />The other thing that'll happen, of course, is that those affected will want action. What I want to examine in this post is whether anything can actually be done?<br /><br />We saw what happened with 9/11. 2 wars: one of which had nothing to do with the attack, both countries destabilized, both countries despising the US and providing a pretty handy narrative for would-be terrorists to recruit and justify THEIR actions.<br /><br />The problem here is that it's not like WW2 where the enemy had a shared national identity and could only advance in physical space. A side effect of the wonders of the internet is that battles can now be fought in virtual reality. No I'm not talking the Oculus Rift. I'm talking YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. ISIS have said they want to "conquer the world" and this guess at their strategy is loosely adapted from the one you can find on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#Strategy">Al-Qaeda's Wikipedia page</a><br /><br />1. Provoke a western country into turning on Muslims.<br />2. Recruit from the inevitable backlash (since it's a generalization, many innocent Muslims will be affected, and some will do something that no longer makes them innocent).<br />3. Stage more attacks and attempt to destabilize Western countries.<br />4. Western economies will collapse trying to defend themselves and their neighbours and they install their caliphate.<br /><br />Now let me be very clear. I don't think there is ANY chance of this happening. However, I'm doing my part here and now to make sure it doesn't come even close. There is no country to attack, no scapegoating that can simplify the issue, and no way of knowing who will be radicalized next. It's an ideological battle, and the only way to fight something like that is with an opposing ideology. No I'm not talking about atheism, a more moderate Islam, Christianity, or anything like that. I'm talking about not being a dick. The average person doesn't think that murdering people is OK, but they can be led to believe it's justified if they are given a strong enough reason to. We need to NOT GIVE THEM THAT REASON. We do this by NOT turning on the refugees, NOT talking about war, NOT demonizing 1.5 billion people, but instead going about our lives doing what we can to make people's lives better.<br /><br />Talk to the weird kids in school.<br />Open up a dialogue with someone from somewhere very different to you.<br />Listen to what people say before, or even instead of, butting in with what you have to say. You can say your piece, just give the other person's perspective genuine consideration first.<br />If someone does wrong you in some way, respond in a considered, proportional way, and learn to forgive them in time.<br /><br />They want us to think one way so we'll destroy ourselves. Let's think the other way so we actually improve the world.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-1867471780595485602015-11-12T14:04:00.001-08:002015-11-12T14:04:11.967-08:00Gattaca of the MindHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />I'm responding in this post to one of my favourite YouTubers, Jim. Or as you might know him, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzd_MLszn8PYqc5Hq56qtOA">noelplum99</a>. He released a video on Monday called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8iLroxTSPE">Genetically Enhanced Intelligence - Major Concerns</a>".<br /><br />Near the end of the video, he cites an issue that could arise out of trying to ban the genetic manipulation of people pre-birth to make them more intelligent. This is as follows:<br /><br />If one country bans the technology, there will be another that won't. That country will advance the intelligence of their population gaining an enormous intellectual, and by extension, creative and economic, advantage over their competition. The rest of the world will have no choice but to adopt the technology to keep up. Jim asks us what we think of this.<br /><br />I responded in short form on his video. The comment is as follows:<br /><br /><i>"I love making videos about the future. I love it even more when my favourite YTers do :)</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>As to the economic superintelligent nations question, I'd probably need to explore it in a blog post or video, but my initial reaction would be that the genetic advances being made here wouldn't happen in a vacuum. They would occur side-by-side along with advances in computing and&nbsp;manufacturing. There are any number of ways it could go, but we could reduce the marginal cost of food production to near-zero, much like we've already done with most human knowledge, colonise </i>(sic)&nbsp;<i>other planets, upload our minds to a cloud, eliminate our need for food and water, or kill ourselves before any of this happens, or any logical combination of those things, all of which lessen or eliminate the threat or concerns posed by a superintelligent nation. The author, Martin Ford, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKsrNKIEMBE">argued for a basic income</a> to solve the problem you identified in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPuK7qBOjgY">your last video about AI</a>: the problem of what to do for money when all the jobs are automated, and this too could affect the fear factor of a "nootropic China"."</i><br /><i><br /></i>I have made some points already in this comment, but with this post, I'd like to contest the premise. I don't think we will face this issue. Not because I think we'll be destroyed before we get there, although it is a possibility. Not because I think "we will never be able to tamper with something as complex and powerful and SACRED as the human brain, nor should we". It is in fact because we will do exactly that, but under a different method, at a different pace, and for a (partially) different reason.<br /><br />What Jim is getting at is essentially the plot of the film "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca">Gattaca</a>", without question my all-time favourite film, if it focused only on the brain. It's possible I'm misinterpreting, but from the way Jim explains it, it sounds like he envisions that intelligence will increase slowly. He says that we could only afford to be "one generation behind" the country that makes the first move. This is, of course, about genetic modification, and it is envisioned to be done to avoid falling behind.<br /><br />GM brains. One generation. Don't fall behind. Circumstances, pace, and reason respectively. I would like to contest all 3. Here are mine.<br /><br />Avatars. Doubling (potentially) each year and getting faster. Understand that which baseline humans could never understand, and to not fall behind AI.<br /><br />Genetic modification is a very slow way of increasing intelligence. You modify the genome pre-birth and then wait for further advances. Dmitri Itkov of the 2045 Initiative has an <a href="http://2045.com/">alternative </a>in the works. His Avatar program is intended to give humans a more durable, energy efficient, and all-round more capable body. We can use less resources, live much longer, phase out the need for transport, simplify how we gain energy, scale up our intelligence by orders of magnitude with each software upgrade, instead of slowly across generations, and, if there's something about being human you just can't live without, adding VR elements to it will make those things possible, and better if you like, while still inhabiting the avatar. That's also pace taken care of.<br /><br />Whether it will pan out on that time scale is the big question. Ray Kurzweil thinks it will, obviously. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAEB-5GOCJ4">Michio Kaku</a> has doubts (around the 40 min mark). Of course, no-one really knows. I take Ray's view simply because it's possible, it's optimistic, and I'm also obsessed with understanding things.<br /><br />What about the reason why? Well, think of what AI can do today. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp4q60BsHoY">Watson beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy</a> 4 years ago. I won't bombard you with more links here as they're all available on YouTube, but we have the Google cars and Tesla's competing Autopilot system, a facial recognition algorithm that is better than humans, an algorithm that can describe a scene, Asimo, BigDog, Siri, Google Now and Cortana. This is what we have now and we had nothing close 10 years ago. This is the beauty of Moore's law and the law of accelerating returns. We do have to assume the trend continues, and there are major stumbling blocks up ahead, but, as ever, I am optimistic. When I enter middle-age, I will be greeted by my robot equals and then superseded by them. In order to compete, I, and everyone else, will need to upgrade, and at that point, we better hope Dmitri Itkov didn't drag his feet. If he didn't, and we vastly increase our intelligence, imagine what we could achieve. Imagine what we could understand, that we couldn't hope to understand now.<br /><br />Maybe I'm getting carried away with myself and it's all too good to be true. Maybe you're just a pessimist that watches too much news about ISIS and school massacres and pines for how things used to be (colonial, at war, poorer, sicker, more racist, sexist and homophobic and oblivious to the existence of transgender people, with no welfare state, unquestioning respect for authority, god-fearing literally, maybe a bit more social but that's it really). For the foreseeable future, time will only flow in 1 direction: forward. I choose to embrace it.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-86838134141358116922015-11-10T12:50:00.000-08:002015-11-10T12:50:10.915-08:00Day of the week from ANY dateHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Want a good party trick and don't mind it being a bit geeky? Learn to work out the day of the week from any date in history in seconds (with maybe a few hours practice once you know the system).<br /><br />My job gets quite repetitive sometimes. To deal with this, I find ways to pass the time and, since my maths degree isn't really being used at my current job, I thought I'd find a way to squeeze it in there. I see birth dates all the time, so one easy thing to occupy some time is to work out the day of the week. Well, I worked out a system for doing it.<br /><br />Before I go any further, let me just say that I'm not saying I invented it. There are systems out there. It's possible someone came up with the same system and I'm not even going to claim this is the best. I just worked this one out. Anyway:<br /><br />Let's take an arbitrary date: 15/09/1990 (day/month/year).<br /><br />Step 1: Work out a small number (0-6) for the day (15/xx/xxxx).<br /><br />To do this, you take the <b>day</b>, <b>divide it by 7</b>, and your "day number" is the <b>remainder</b>. If you're not great at dividing, just keep subtracting 7 until you have a number under 7. If do this a lot, you'll eventually memorize them all.<br /><br />The result in the example is <b>1</b>: 15 divided by 7 is 2 remainder<b> 1</b>, or subtracting 7 gives you 8, then doing it again gives you 1.<br /><br />Step 2: Work out a small number (0-6) for the month (xx/09/xxxx).<br /><br />Americans and others who follow month/day/year will probably do this step first then step 1. The best way to get the month number is to simply <b>memorize</b> them but I will explain how I derived this system at the end for anyone who's interested.<br /><br /><b>January - 0</b><br /><b>February - 3</b><br /><b>March - 3</b><br /><b>April - 6</b><br /><b>May - 1</b><br /><b>June - 4</b><br /><b>July - 6</b><br /><b>August - 2</b><br /><b>September - 5</b><br /><b>October - 0</b><br /><b>November - 3</b><br /><b>December - 5</b><br /><b><br /></b>09 is of course September so the month number here is <b>5</b>.<br /><b><br /></b>Step 3: Work out a small number (0-6) for the year (xx/xx/1990).<br /><br />This is the most difficult step. First, you need to memorize a few reference years. I will write down all the ones for the 20th and 21st centuries:<br /><br /><b>1888 (included to deal with years from 1900-1915)</b><br /><b>1916</b><br /><b>1944</b><br /><b>1972</b><br /><b>2000</b><br /><b>2028</b><br /><b>2056</b><br /><b>2084</b><br /><b><br /></b>It's no coincidence that these years are 28 years apart, and to find a reference number for a year earlier than this, you simply need to keep going forward or backward in jumps of 28. All of these reference years have a "year number" of <b>0</b>.<br /><br />To work out the year number for any other year, take the reference year <b>immediately before </b>your date and <b>start counting up until you get to the year in your date</b>. Add <b>1</b>&nbsp;to your year number for each normal year and <b>2 </b>for every 4 years. Once you have your result, <b>divide the answer by 7 again, and take the remainder.</b><br /><br />For 1990, the reference year immediately before this is <b>1972</b>. There are 18 years between the 2 dates, 4 goes into 18 4 times, so you end up with 22. Dividing this by 7 gives you 3 remainder <b>1</b>.<br /><br />You may complain that this is a hopelessly slow and/or complicated step, and you'd be right. It's easier, once again, to just memorize the year numbers, I included the complicated way above so that you know how to find the year number if you forget it:<br /><br /><b>Years removed from reference year - Year number</b><br />1 -<b> 1</b><br />2 -<b> 2</b><br />3 -<b> 3</b><br />4 -<b> 5</b><br />5 -<b> 6</b><br />6 -<b> 0</b><br />7 - <b>1</b><br />8 -<b> 3</b><br />9 -<b> 4</b><br />10 -<b> 5</b><br />11 -<b> 6</b><br />12 -<b> 1</b><br />13 -<b> 2</b><br />14 -<b> 3</b><br />15 -<b> 4</b><br />16 -<b> 6</b><br />17 -<b> 0</b><br />18 -<b> 1</b><br />19 -<b>&nbsp;2</b><br />20 -<b> 4</b><br />21 - <b>5</b><br />22 -<b> 6</b><br />23 -<b> 0</b><br />24 -<b> 2</b><br />25 - <b>3</b><br />26 -<b> 4</b><br />27 -<b> 5</b><br /><b><br /></b>Step 4: Add up your total. There are 2 final steps that apply under certain conditions:<br /><br />a) If your date is in January or February of a leap year, <b>subtract 1</b>.<br />b) A not-so-well known fact about dates is that centenary years (1700, 1800 etc.) are<b> NOT</b>&nbsp;leap years <b>unless they are divisible by 400</b>. To account for this, when going <b>backwards</b> through the centuries, <b>add 1 for each centenary non-leap year</b>, and when going <b>forwards, subtract 1</b>.<br /><br />Neither of these additional conditions applies to our example date. So, what do we get?<br /><br />1 + 5 + 1 = <b>7</b><br /><b><br /></b>To find the day:<br /><b>-1 - Friday</b><br /><b>0 - Saturday</b><br /><b>1 - Sunday</b><br /><b>2 - Monday</b><br /><b>3 - Tuesday</b><br /><b>4 - Wednesday</b><br /><b>5 - Thursday</b><br /><b>6 - Friday</b><br /><b>7 - Saturday</b><br /><b>8 - Sunday</b><br /><b>9 - Monday</b><br /><b>10 - Tuesday</b><br /><b>11 - Wednesday</b><br /><b>12 - Thursday</b><br /><b>13 - Friday</b><br /><b>14 - Saturday</b><br /><b>15 - Sunday</b><br /><b>16 - Monday</b><br /><b>17 - Tuesday</b><br /><b>18 - Wednesday</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>So 15/09/1990 is a Saturday!</b><br /><b><br /></b>So how effective is this technique? If you're working out all the steps the first time round, it will probably take about a minute, but it depends on your maths abilities. This is why I advise memorizing them, as it is much quicker. I can do any date this century or last in about 5 seconds now. It requires very little effort. Sometimes I forget to subtract 1 for the Jan/Feb leap year dates, and that's mostly because they're quite rare, but for the most part, that is a taste of what you could do. Know the steps inside out and I reckon, within an hour or two, you could be at the 10 second level. From there, it's diminishing returns, as you need to relentlessly focus on which steps are tripping you up.<br /><br />For a lot of people, this is where we part ways. However, if you want to know how I derived my system, read on :)<br /><br /><br /><br />OK so to start with, I looked up the day of the week for <b>January 1st 2000</b>. I thought it'd be as good a place as any to start. Turns out it's a <b>Saturday</b>. Trivially, each 7 day jump after that will also be a Saturday. What about <b>February 1st 2000</b>? This is a <b>Tuesday</b>. There is a distance of 31 days between these 2 dates and this amounts to 3 days of the week. This makes sense. A week is 7 days, there are 4 full weeks in 31 days, and then 3 extra days left over. This gives us the beginning of the method to derive the month number: <b>take the number of days in that month, divide it by 7, take the remainder, and add it to the month number of the last month</b>.<br /><br />This isn't the whole story though. Take <b>March 1st 2000</b>, a <b>Wednesday </b>(1 + 3 + 0 = 4). 2000 is a leap year, and so there are 29 days in February in that year. The problem then is that, in most years, February 1st and March 1st would be on the same day of the week (28 divides EXACTLY by 7), but on leap years, March 1st will be a day of the week <b>later</b>. This gives us condition a) from earlier, and also the reason why, when it comes to year numbers, you add 2 for every 4th year you pass. As <b>each reference year is a leap year </b>(28 is a multiple of 4 and 2000 is a leap year), each 4th year is a leap year.<br /><br />This allows us to assign arbitrary values to January 1st 2000: keeping the day number as is, just simplifying it to below 0-6 (by dividing by 7 and taking the remainder) keeps it very simple: <b>1st = 1</b>. We are subtracting 1 because it's January of a leap year: <b>1-1=0</b>. January is the first month so why make it anything other than 0? 2000 is a leap year, and a year familiar to most of us, so again why not 0. Without having to figure anything else out, we've assigned a final number of <b>0 </b>to <b>Saturday</b>. To work out all other final numbers, we simply recognize that you can't get a number lower than -1 (January 7th 2000 =<b> 0 + 0 + 0 -1 = -1</b>) or higher than 18 (April 6th 2005 = <b>6 + 6 + 6</b>), and count them along with the days of the week, repeating the cycle after each 7. I tend to keep the final number under 7 as well so I apply century adjustments after.<br /><br />This leaves the year number and condition b). The year number is derived as simply as this: 365 days in a year. 365 divided by 7 is 52 remainder <b>1</b>. 366 divided by 7 is 52 remainder <b>2</b>. This gives us the 1 and 2 we repeatedly add to get the year number. As this number is kept between 0 and 6 (a range of 7 numbers), and adding 2 happens every 4 numbers, this cycle will repeat every 28 years (7 x 4 = 28) giving us the motivation behind reference numbers.<br /><br />Finally, to derive condition b), take <b>March 1st 1900</b>, a <b>Thursday</b>&nbsp;(1 + 3 + 1 = 5). As 1900 is <b>not</b>&nbsp;a leap year (it does not divide exactly by 400), March 1st immediately follows February 28th, a Wednesday. In 1928, which is a leap year, February 29th would be the Wednesday and so February 28th would be a Tuesday. February 28th is <b>1 day of the week later</b>&nbsp;in 1900 than it would otherwise be, and then so is every date for the 100 years including and immediately before Feb 28th 1900. This means we <b>add 1 </b>to bring our system into alignment. Using the exact same logic, we <b>subtract 1</b>&nbsp;when going in the opposite direction.<br /><br />And we are done! Thanks for reading.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-78585229880349507372015-11-09T13:33:00.000-08:002015-11-09T13:33:00.925-08:00I am a feminist out of protestHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />In my video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlmEbzBNdOU">"Feminism and Islam: A Better Discussion"</a>, I said that I try to take an objective view of the issues, to not associate myself too strongly with a particular point of view so that I can remain level-headed and not end up emotionally investing in the position. On that video, I was accused by one commenter of having a feminist bias. This post won't help dissuade people who agree with that viewpoint, but the title, at least I hope, should give you an idea that things won't be as simplistic as me just calling myself a feminist.<br /><br />I won't lie: when I come across feminists on YouTube, I'm mostly pleasantly surprised. They are civil in terms of how they deal with the opposing side, they cite sources in their videos (a lot of the time the sources are obviously biased, but still, it's 1 step above the many that don't), and I have a definite bias to some out of the fact that I've known them for years (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/lacigreen">Laci</a> being the most prominent example here). In contrast, anti-feminists, and I'm using the term here as a catch-all to describe anyone opposed to feminist arguments, have overwhelmingly been very aggressive, very personal in their attacks, have an obsession with generalizing (a video can never be about just 1 feminist, it's always about feminISTS), and do not even seem receptive to the arguments they are hearing. Of course, I won't make the same mistake they do. I am seeing a tiny subsection of YouTube. There are no doubt plenty of reasonable anti-feminists and very unreasonable feminists, but I've seen what I've seen. My "bias" is more one in favour of civility rather than in favour of feminism. I like nuanced arguments. I like videos where the videomaker is being civil. I like videos where the opponent is treated as an individual and not a label. I am "biased" towards these kinds of videos.<br /><br />None of this has anything to do with why I'd call myself a feminist, I just thought I'd get that out of the way. I call myself a feminist for one reason only: I am in favour of gender equality. That's it. That's all "feminism" means. The rest is nuance.<br /><br />What about the protest part? Well, this comes down to a tendency that has cropped up among both camps. People are rejecting the label "feminism" because, in their view, it has become associated with man-haters and/or "special snowflakes" who are offended by everything. Many of the people rejecting this label are in favour of gender equality, and so could quite easily call themselves feminists, but choose not to because of what they perceive to be a hijacking of the term. I have only one response to that:<br /><br />HIJACK IT BACK!<br /><br />Language is not decided by a dictionary. You don't need to just give up on a word once it's been co-opted by a group you don't approve of. You can always take it back. By refusing to use the term, you are contributing to the exact phenomenon that caused you to ditch the label in the first place. I absolutely refuse to do that. Feminism achieved great things back in the day. It got women the vote. It got them into the work place. Don't throw all that under the bus just because of what a TINY MINORITY of assholes are doing with it now. If you disagree with what they say, call yourself a feminist and disagree.<br /><br />You will never be able to assume what positions I hold on various issues just because I use the term feminism. I disagree with many prominent YouTube feminists on a whole array of issues. I agree, to some extent, with a few positions held by anti-feminists and MRAs. None of this changes the fact that I support gender equality and so I will use a label that claims to champion this, and do my bit to ensure this definition is reflected. If anyone has a problem with that, too bad.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-2870875755348092722015-11-08T09:01:00.002-08:002015-11-08T09:01:45.733-08:00JJ and the DickHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />I'd like to be very serious if I may. Drama has erupted between 2 YouTubers I have a lot of respect for. One is someone I've been subscribed to for almost the entirety of my channel, the other is a more recent favourite. These, respectively, are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/jennatalherpes">JJTalkz</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/DickDynasty666">Richard "The Dick" Coughlan</a>. Since getting up to speed on this drama involves watching nearly an hour of YouTube videos, I will simply link the videos down below, and give a brief summary in which hopefully I cover the most important points. Any and all evidence for claims available is linked in the videos so I won't relink them here.<br /><br />The videos:<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIjQus7NQoQ">JJTalkz: Unsafe on YouTube (Sexual Harassment) (parts 1...</a><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRKknpu1J3U">and 2)</a><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEL7IzYRH8">Dick Coughlan: JJTalkz is a Paranoid Idiot *DRAMA ALERT*</a><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXNmJE0pXY">JJVlogz: DICK COUGHLAN &amp; I HATE YT FEMINISM</a><br /><br />In summary:<br />JJTalkz made 2 videos about sexual harassment she has experienced and known about in the community she is a part of on YouTube. 5 months later, JJ tweets twice about Coughlan saying that he thinks sexual harassment is OK (these tweets are available in Coughlan's video linked above). What Coughlan actually said is that in any community, there are opportunistic assholes who will take advantage of a certain set of beliefs to gain favour with the females in that group, and so, realistically, all a YouTuber in that community can do is persevere and try not to let it bother them. Coughlan was understandably not pleased at JJ for taking this to mean he "supports sexual assault". On her 2nd channel, JJ then makes a far more serious claim: that Coughlan has harassed several transgender YouTubers, and JJ is unwilling to name them, as they came to her in confidence with those claims.<br /><br />This is an extremely depressing and ugly situation. I live in the UK, where a serious of scandals in the last few years have resulted in some of our most respected celebrities from back in the day turning out to be assault perpetrators and pedophiles (e.g. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile">Jimmy Saville</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Watkins_(Lostprophets)">Ian Watkins</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Harris">Rolf Harris</a>). While none of these individuals ever had much of an impact on my life personally, I have learned from the scandal, and so I am committed to taking the claim seriously, should the evidence come forward. I have also, in a comment on the last video linked above, promised JJ to make this post here and to take it seriously, should the evidence come to light, and to pressure Coughlan to address the claims if they come forward.<br /><br />I've been subscribed to Coughlan for 6 years. I've met him 4 times at his comedy gigs. He was incredibly nice to me and my friends, sitting down to drink with us after the gigs. I'd even found out later on that he was quite ill at the time. He is one of the most reasonable people I know on YouTube, going by the things he says in his videos. There are few people I have more respect for, and I would be devastated to learn that these claims were true, and perhaps because of this, I suspect they aren't, or are also misinterpretations. I refuse, however, not to be open to the idea.<br /><br />At the same time, I feel for JJ's current predicament. It was ill-conceived of her to make that last video in which she made this claim, as she will only dig a deeper and deeper hole for herself the longer this goes on without the particular victims being named. She said in the comment section to her video that 1 of the victims is considering coming forward. I hope they do, as this is not something that can be left to last. Coughlan has been the victim of many claims, most having been found beyond any doubt at all to be false. This is nothing new for him, but I suspect that doesn't make it nothing to deal with. Even if it did, there is a precedent being set here, that someone can make a claim and then not provide specifics because the victims came to them "in confidence". Making such a claim is very serious and can destroy people's lives (the expression "His Name Is Mud" originated under similar circumstances).<br /><br />I'd like to add also that I'm disappointed in JJ and in myself. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtFqHEc0ZBk">I made a video</a> in which I held up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqbcV1EyehU">her recent video on atheism</a>&nbsp;as an example of the kind of videos we should be making about atheism: ones in which we temper our criticisms by offering alternate solutions, in which we humanise ourselves by talking calmly about our experiences. I stand by this view of THAT video, but this recent drama casts a shadow over it. I was too quick to hold her up as an example of the good we can do, and for that I'm sorry. It's not a done deal: we all make mistakes, and I'm certainly hoping JJ learns from this, as there is still a lot of good she can do.<br /><br />As for what I think should happen next...<br /><br />This first paragraph assumes that the claims are misinterpretations:<br />I would encourage JJ to name the victims to Coughlan, and of course, to get the victims consent first. Having been on YouTube a while, I can say with complete confidence that most dramas that have erupted, even some of the largest, have been over misinterpretations. This can all be resolved if JJ, Coughlan, and the victims all come together to talk it out. As I've said, Coughlan is a very reasonable guy. I'm sure he'd be open to this if given the chance.<br /><br />And if the claims are true:<br />There's no other option: they have to come forward publicly. I don't want to undermine the immense difficulty and fear involved with doing such a thing, but then it's important also not to prolong a potentially false assault claim: something which, despite anyone's views to the contrary, is taken VERY seriously. I'm not going to lie, there is a chance the claims will not be believed. However, I will link 2 videos that might give you some hope where this situation is concerned: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9qVaMhnJB8">one from outside our community</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGI_8eXc9c8">one within</a>. Claims like this ARE taken seriously, and you have my word, at least, that I will take them seriously, and I encourage everyone reading this, regardless of how they feel about anyone mentioned in this post, to do the same.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-28077450133385405412015-10-18T14:45:00.001-07:002015-10-18T14:45:28.817-07:00Future Analysis: Doctor WhoHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Time to start a series to get me committed to posting in this blog. This one will look at the various futures presented in science-fiction shows, movies and books that I've read, looking at the world-building of their futures. I want to start with a big one: the longest running sci-fi series of all time, Doctor Who.<br /><br />I am a fan of the show. I watch it every Saturday as it comes on, and I've been extremely impressed with Peter Capaldi's episodes so far, in fact, The Magician's Apprentice is probably one of my all-time favourites for it's shock opening and it's "AN-ACH-RO-NI-SMS". Nevertheless, in terms of technological progress, it is, without a doubt, the most pessimistic view of the future I've ever seen. Let me explain.<br /><br />Doctor Who is not known for its consistency. This is a show that has spanned 50 years. Many episodes have been lost, and it's hard to know if anyone has actually seen every single episode. It would be a miracle if no episode ever contradicted its established canon at some point. In fact, the most recent writers are very aware of this: dismissing such concerns with such plot devices as "fixed points" and "wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey". As a result of this, any hypothesized future can be rewritten to suit the changing cultural context or to make up for any errors in future prediction. Pretty clever when it's the relatively near future. However, this series makes predictions about the extremely distant future: "The End of the World" was set in the year 5 billion when the sun expands having used up its hydrogen and destroys the Earth, "Utopia", another of my all-time favourites, was set in the year 100 trillion near the heat death of the universe, and, most recently of all, "Listen" was set even later still when all life in the universe had died out apart from the episode's main "villains", creatures that perfectly evolved to hide. We are supposed to believe, watching these episodes, that we will still so easily die, that the vast majority of alien creatures will have human-like intelligence, that our spaceships will be made of materials that can't fix themselves, that we will not have, even ignoring transhumanism completely, continued to evolve so we look EXACTLY THE SAME IN 100 TRILLION YEARS.<br /><br />There are futurists, who are taken seriously, who believe that transhumanist technologies will overcome most of these problems in the next 50 years and possibly all of them in the next 100. Their arguments rely solely on computing technology advancing at just the rate it is now. Even if their timing was off, at worst, all this will be achieved by the 23rd century. In order for us to reach the year 100 trillion and to not have a solution for all biological diseases, not have amplified our intelligence, not have changed our physiology AT ALL, to not have progressed even a few decades in material science, and to not have the slightest clue what to do about the impending heat death of the universe, a second humanity, one which is completely identical, would have to have evolved separately on another planet and have got to our point of development just before this heat death occurs. I don't think I even need to explain how preposterous this is.<br /><br />I would be mad to attempt to predict what the universe would look like in the year 100 trillion and expect it to be right. Nevertheless, I make a habit of engaging in pie-in-the-sky speculation so let's see what we can say. To start, there's a very good chance we would have died long before we ever get to that point. We face a lot of existential threats in the near future as it is: climate change, resource shortages combined with increasing population, loss of biodiversity, the fact that we are still a one-planet species so anything that impacts the Earth with enough force will wipe us out like we were Doctor Who's prediction of the year 100 trillion on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe7hG1NXVdw">Ray Kurzweil's</a> whiteboard. But engaging in pie-in-the-sky speculation about how we'll die isn't necessarily something I find as fun so let's move on.<br /><br />Regardless of the accuracy of the aforementioned Kurzweil's predictions, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near">the singularity </a>will definitely have happened by this time. Therefore, we will no longer be human as we understand it today. By the standard of current human beings, we will have become god-like: we will be many, many orders of magnitude more intelligent, we will have left Earth long before the sun destroyed it, we may even have harvested the energy of the sun completely long before it ever gets to the point of destroying Earth. If it is theoretically possible to circumvent the speed of light, we will have found a way. If M-Theory is correct, we may have even done an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)">Interstellar</a>&nbsp;and migrated to other dimensions. We could live literally however we choose due to manipulating computronium: a substance postulated by Ray Kurzweil in his 2005 book "The Singularity Is Near" that essentially describes the conclusion of advancing information technology, which is a substance that is solely dedicated to computing power. Something made of computronium cannot squeeze any more computing power out of that volume of material. Manipulating such technology could allow us to create a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix">Matrix</a>&nbsp;of our own choosing, a body of our own choosing, and even an intellgence, knowledge-base, sensory experience and memories of our own choosing. If we know everything there ever is to know, we could, for example, choose to disconnect that knowledge from our brains so that we continue to be enthralled by new information. Most importantly, if the universe's heat death can be overcome, and we can survive beyond it, assuming our species is still bio-techno-physiologically motivated to do it, we will have found a way long before we ever get to that point.<br /><br />I'd like to leave you with one other thing that's bothered me about Doctor Who for the last few years. If time travel exists in this universe, and it's not just the Time Lords who have access to it (Captain Jack was a "time agent" and, as established in Torchwood, the spin-off, he is not the only one as James Marsters played Captain John), why can't everyone do it? Again, are we supposed to believe that it was only independently invented twice, and they could regulate it so well that only very few had access to it?<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-26461552407235470892015-10-18T11:31:00.001-07:002015-10-18T11:31:41.476-07:00Futurama vs TranshumanismHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />I said this blog was going to discuss topics that I wouldn't want to make a video about, mostly because they're minor points or addenda to existing videos. This one, I could make a video about if I were still using my camcorder, but the logistics of filming it on my phone in 1 continuous shot make it impractical. It also wouldn't really suit the Blender animated format that I discuss embarking on in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlYsNvorICc">this video</a>.<br /><br />PBS Idea Channel released a video in June called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdyc7BpKic0">"Is Futurama the Best Argument Against Transhumanism"</a>. I recommend watching it, but to give a summary, the video describes transhumanism, and Futurama's portrayal of the future as one in which there are many wonders of technology, but there are still issues faced by the characters, human and alien alike. It talks about how, despite having an abundance of modern gadgets that have inarguably changed our world, it IS arguable whether they have made us happier and more contented. As is typically the case with popular videos, the comments largely echo the views of PBS Idea Channel. However, I can't possibly disagree more with the conclusions.<br /><br />To start off, Futurama was, at one time, one of my favourite shows. As a Simpsons fan, I readily jumped on the idea of having the same humour in a futuristic setting. My appreciation didn't even wane when the show was brought back after it's cancellation, with the one about the 3012 elections being among my all-time favourites. However, it paints a view of the future that cannot seriously be informed by an honest look at future trends. Like Back To The Future 2, which takes part 3 days from now, it seems to be far more informed by humour than dedicated futurology. People fly around in vacuum tubes, people still work as delivery boys, the only AI seems to be entirely encased in robot bodies, it is all based almost exactly around humans, buildings appear to still be made of 20th century materials, and elections don't seem to have changed at all (other than robots getting a vote, which is something I will mark to the show's credit). Other than my previous bracketed statement, all of those observations are contestable within possibly the next 50 years let alone 1000.<br /><br />However, it's transhumanism that I'm focused on here. Transhumanism is necessarily about overcoming human limitations. From the arguments presented in the video, it doesn't appear as if PBS has actually grasped transhumanism at all.<br /><br />He argues that we aren't significantly happier than we were in the past, despite our newer technology. I think there are a number of reasons for this. First, I would argue that the real purpose of technology so far is to show off the power of the human brain. We created it because we could. A secondary purpose is to make our lives safer. I don't think many people would seriously argue that technology hasn't made our lives safer, just imagine being on the plains of Africa 100,000 years ago and hunting lions with a spear. However, it is by looking back at this timeline that we also learn why we are not happier. We evolved to fight for our food, just like every other living creature. We are a product of the competitive drive of evolution. Let's not forget, evolution is a set of random changes occurring in the genome that the environment then weeds out depending on how successful it is at procreating. This is a dumb process that couldn't possibly account for idleness and lack of challenge. Technology, so far at least, has taken away challenge and provided much idleness. The result is that many yearn for the past which they see as "simpler" and "more social" despite it also being more hard work, more dangerous, dirtier, less tolerant, more violent and a host of other bad qualities.<br /><br />There are 2 words that I want to highlight in the previous paragraph: "so far". Technological progress is not "finished". There are scientific questions we still need to answer, and there are further problems that technology will be able to solve. More importantly, technology will be able to solve problems that it itself created, leading to, in a moment of stunning irony, the conclusion that technology is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUVwR0rw5fk">"the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems"</a>. The most relevant problem to be solved here? The problem of happiness.<br /><br />What PBS fails to grasp is that happiness itself is a product of the human mind. Transhumanism seeks to re-invent the human being in accordance with the continually progressing technology of the time. We can, in theory, engineer a better form of happiness. We can possibly even engineer out the ability for a human being to suffer without also, intentionally or otherwise, engineering out that which makes us most productive or most human.<br /><br />How can it be that we won't just laze around doing nothing all day when we are continually happy? Simple. What happens when we are idle? How do we feel? We feel bored. Guilty. We are motivated into action by emotions that make us feel bad. We justify and even romanticize this because we have no alternative emotions to feel. What if instead we felt a tremendous urge to do something? That, along with this urge, came the motivation and energy to do it? Most of my inability to motivate myself to write here, to make videos, to do the learning that I strongly feel I want to do is caused by a lack of motivation and energy. This doesn't make me productive, it does the opposite. What we can essentially do here is turn a "negative" feeling into a biotechnologically driven "positive" adrenaline shot to our motivation and even a potential cure for depression.<br /><br />This could be applied to all negative feelings. Physical pain could be replaced entirely with an extensive diagnostic network that could motivate you to seek "techno-medical" help whenever you sustain injury or the technology is corrupted or damaged. Sadness could be replaced by an urge to bond with other people, and the other person's brain could make it's owner attracted to that urge.<br /><br />Make no mistake, this is an ethical Olympus Mons. There are so many angles to look at this and it raises so many questions about how we might approach designing a "transhuman template". Can we conceive of a set of emotions that don't inadvertently cause adverse behaviour? Is human behaviour and it's results so complex as to, even given a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uIzS1uCOcE">Kurzweilian </a>view of the future, be impossible to begin to engineer a better alternative? It won't come as a surprise to anyone when I answer these questions with the ever humble and honest answer of "I don't know", but I wouldn't be a transhumanist if I wasn't optimistic about our ability to succeed.<br /><br />What I would stress though is this. Let's not immediately give up. I have offered attempts at solutions because we do still suffer, and I want to see that suffering dealt with. The arguments that PBS presents against transhumanism fail because it is almost as if he believes that technological progress will just stop one day, as if we could stop people from designing a better human being. Our human brains, a product of imperfect evolution, have served us well in getting as far as we have and making sure we never just "stop", but it has caused an inexcusable amount of suffering along the road. It is not heady or unrealistic to consider that, given all we've achieved so far, we can't do a lot better when the design of that progress engine becomes intentional.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-12481787068630347582015-10-17T12:09:00.002-07:002015-10-17T12:09:38.321-07:00The Flat-Earth Creationist's StoryESSENTIAL DISCLAIMER: I myself am not a flat-earther or creationist. This story is hypothetical and seeks to demonstrate a point.<br /><br />PART 1<br /><br />I love my town. I love the people, the warmth, the sense of community. We all attend church, like clockwork, on a Sunday morning, basking in the equally invigorating and pleasing warmth of our lord, God. The inimitable father who created our universe and our planet 6000 years ago. We tell the stories to our children, in our schools, imparting the wisdom of the bible, that they may use it to enrich and better their lives. But it always comes back to the church.<br /><br />This is where I met my true love, Sally, and where we had our 3 beautiful children together. Every Sunday, we go to our favorite building in the town. We pray, we listen, we sing, and we talk about the stories that inspire and inform our daily lives. The stories have brought us so much joy, our experiences so great, that last week, I decided to record myself telling these stories, sharing my feelings about our lord, on the popular video site, YouTube. This is where the joy ends...<br /><br />After the first video, I got a lot of comments from atheists. They called me stupid, ridiculed my stories, they said things like "who could believe this in the 21st century". I received death threats via my inbox. It was clear to me that they didn't want me there. They didn't want me talking about the things which brought such joy to me and my family. I began to wonder whether or not they were even capable of joy? Nevertheless, I persisted. It didn't take me long to figure out the nature of YouTube: a land with the law of the jungle where the strong survive, and the weak flee. I decided to be the strong. I decided to keep going.<br /><br />PART 2<br /><br />It's been almost a year. I've made some friends on YouTube. Some of these friends, believe it or not, are atheists. They're no different to me or my wife: they work hard, they love their children, and they appear to get just as much joy from science and art as we do from the scriptures. This was not my initial impression, but one which I learned in my persistence.<br /><br />A new family came to our town last week. They live right next door, so me and my family have been helping them with their furniture and telling them about the local amenities and so forth. On their first day, after a lot of the hard work had been done, we invited them for dinner, and I got to speaking with the father, Gerald, afterwards on our porch, in our garden. Over a beer, we discussed the church, and that's when he told me. "This isn't really for us. We don't believe in God." Only I was around. I had my few atheist friends online, but this is my first time ever meeting one in person. It was this point that I had a haunting epiphany:<br /><br />My first few months on YouTube were traumatic at best. A majority seemed only there to belittle beliefs other than their own. I remembered the few discussions that we had about atheists among our town's community, and not a single one was positive. Gerald, and possibly the rest of his family, were about to endure what I endured on YouTube here in this town, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know what to say to him.<br /><br />PART 3<br /><br />A month has gone by, and I'm pleased to call Gerald one of my best friends. Unfortunately, this is about the only positive news I can relate to you. Things are tense. Some of the town-folk have grown suspicious that they see Gerald and his family on the street, but never at church. I have come to respect Gerald's views, my fellow town-folk have not. Even my wife asks me about them, and I've done my best to dodge the issue, but I fear we don't have long left.<br /><br />On top of this, I find myself more and more persuaded by what atheists are telling me the longer I spend on YouTube and with Gerald. Our views directly conflict on many fronts, but for me, it's not the science vs bible issue that I find to be the most relevant here. It's the human drama behind the scenes.<br /><br />I am beginning to believe that I have lived a lie. My views were never significantly challenged throughout my life. My life itself fed on, depended on, the teachings of my church, and my religion. We bonded over the stories. Our many happy, memorable experiences all in some way came back to the church. Our beliefs brought us together. They made us happy. But I'm coming to believe that we had been lied to.<br /><br />If there is one thing I would wish for people to understand about me and the people in my town, it is this: we are not idiots. We are not stupid people. We are happy. The stories give us pleasure. They give us something to bond over, to find our sweethearts, to tell to our children, to make them happy too. It's not that we can't understand science. It may not even be entirely accurate to suggest we don't want to. It's that we can't afford to. Gerald is about to find out what happens when you are seen as a threat to that happiness. I can't blame the town. I can't blame Gerald for trying to make a life for his family. All I can do is watch and despair for what his about to happen...<br /><br />PART 4<br /><br />I've moved to the UK. Sally left me, she has custody of the kids. Gerald and his family have come along with me, not knowing what else to do. Also, I am an atheist. I can no longer believe, in good conscience, the stories that my town and my church used to teach me. The Earth is not 6000 years old. God did not create it. It is between 4 and 5 billion years old, and it started with the big bang. I'm still a little sketchy with the details of the exact moment of creation, but, as I understand it, even the scientists studying it are. I don't think you even need me to say, then, why I am in this situation.<br /><br />I am not pessimistic. Many of my YouTube friends live here. I came here, not because I don't love the USA, but because, for people like me, we are most definitely safe. Me and Gerald saw a video of the 2010 elections when a liberal candidate said on national TV "I am not a man of god". This place will be more welcoming for now. I will make a new life here. I will find someone else to share my life with. I love Sally dearly. The pain is excruciating. Nevertheless, I can't go back. The joy, the warmth, the welcoming open arms were reserved for members of their community, people who see the world as they see it. I no longer do or can.<br /><br />This is the end of my story, but know that I don't hate them. I don't fear them. I don't blame them. They only want what any other human being wants: to belong, to love and be loved, and to be happy. Maybe one day when their children, or grandchildren, who will interact with technology that I can't even imagine, who could possibly meet a stranger in another country in a way that would be no different to us than meeting someone for a coffee today, can meet and interact with atheists like Gerald, and now myself, they can turn the community around, that it is not threatened by the present, that it embraces the future. And yet, I wonder whether we can replace that joy, that sense of community, of togetherness? I, at least, will endeavor to try...<br /><br />THE ENDOrygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-17966524047076221032015-10-17T10:58:00.000-07:002015-10-17T10:58:49.030-07:00Two FrontsHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />I said, WELCOME TO ORYGYN! Hello? Is anyone there? Oh I see. I get it. You couldn't wait 2 measly years for the next post so you left me.Typical 8&lt;{D-<br /><br />Where have I been? Nowhere. I've been here all along. I'm like that. One day, I'm interested in making videos. Next, I'm interested in watching TV for hours. That time frame is very flexible, but once it's up, you couldn't pay me to keep doing it. It's annoying. It leads to a lot of unfinished work. But there you go.<br /><br />I have this blog. If I post here, I'm sending a signal to myself that if I don't think I can make a video about something, if it warrants a shorter but more considered response than to film a 9-minute video in one stretch and hope what I say is clear, I will say it here. That's the idea. I hope I can pull it off.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-33511043299043909472013-09-29T15:33:00.001-07:002013-09-29T15:33:10.088-07:00My StyleHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />That last post. It was criticised on reddit for being too long. TL,DR was the response, which means "too long, didn't read". There are 2 reasons for such a remark:<br /><br />1. I don't read long posts. I don't have the time, patience, or interest.<br />2. I found the post too long-winded and wordy to warrant its length.<br /><br />I'll keep this short and sweet. I am wordy. I write long posts. But I only ever repeat myself if I feel the emphasis is necessary. That's the beauty of a blog: you can post whatever you like, and people will either accept it or not, but they have no power to change you.<br /><br />With all that in mind, decide for yourself if you want to come along on the ride.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-18814706128879395652013-09-29T13:46:00.002-07:002013-09-29T13:46:16.314-07:00X ViewerHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />I must write this while I'm still angry. I want every shred of hatred, rage, indignation, mouth-foaming fury, and sheer contempt to be apparent in this article. I won't take it down. I won't regret it. I will simply write the unfiltered thoughts that occur to me for the next half an hour or so.<br /><br />For the past 6 or 7 years, since the year that Leona Lewis won, I've very begrudgingly watched the X Factor. I've never been impressed by the show. It has always very obviously seemed to me to be nothing like what it pretends to be. It's not a singing competition. They're not looking for someone who can go on to sell millions of albums or hit singles. It's little more than the TV equivalent of a farm. A farm to milk dry well-intentioned aspiring singers of their emotions, credibility, individuality, and yes, talent. All of this in the name of ratings and advertisement money. If they were really trying to find the next big singer, they'd be more successful. Because make no mistake: there is no lack of competence in what they do. Let me demonstrate that by analysing the latest gauntlet these creatures have devised for the singers to run.<br /><br />There are 6 chairs. Each of the singers left in the singing competition must stand, in Wembley arena, in front of thousands of people and the 4 judges and sing for their right to sit in 1 of those chairs. The judge who is in charge of that singer's group (boys, girls, overs, and groups) must decide whether they get to sit or go. Right off the bat, this format is shamelessly ripped off from The Voice, it's just a lot faster. But it doesn't end there. Once all 6 chairs are filled, the remaining singers must also sing in front of the judges and Wembley, but if the judge really wants to keep 1 of them, that judge must ask 1 of the people sitting on the seat to go home. This after they have already been asked to take a seat and have gotten their hopes up about going through. I watched this format play out once. Nicole Scherzinger replaced 3 chair occupants during her group's performances. She was in a state, the contestants were in a state, one of them even had to stand outside because they were so upset about the fact that if she did well enough to go through, she would have to, essentially, force someone else out of their chair. I had to sit there, while everyone else was watching, and suppress the most powerful rage I've felt in a long while. It sickened me to the core to watch this. Yet I must, despite such feelings, concede the obvious competence with which this thing was devised.<br /><br />This format brought out some of the most powerful emotions I've ever seen on the show. Most of the contestants on the chairs were trembling. Everyone who had to replace someone else on the chairs cried at some point before, during or after their audition. And, no doubt, what I felt, I won't be alone in feeling. When you're sickened, you're not bored. And let's face it, I'm writing this article. This will just give them more attention, and make them more popular. I will justify that decision later. What matters now is that this format is genius, in the same way that the contraptions from any of the Saw films are genius.<br /><br />But let's not kid ourselves. This has no beneficial impact on any of the singers. This teaches them nothing that couldn't be taught infinitely more humanely and competently through some other means. I say this because people are bound to defend this format by saying something like "it's a dog-eat-dog industry", "it's tough, and they've got to show they can handle the pressure", or, my personal favourite, "they've got too many contestants, they've got to whittle it down somehow". As arguments these are up there with defending obvious novelty acts without any future in the business by saying "they're fun". Well guess what. In a couple of months, they won't be. These people will have to live their lives as an embarrassment of pop culture. The X Factor producers, judges, and audience, including myself for contributing with my viewer-ship, all contributed to that and let them believe they were something special, when really we just laughed at them. And as for the "dog-eat-dog" industry argument, the rest of the show already does more than enough to teach them that lesson. They spend their entire stint in the show competing with everyone else and only 1 of them can win, and you honestly want to tell me that's not enough? No, this format is a disgusting exercise in cruelty. Nothing more. Nothing less. It would be like punching someone in the face and justifying it by telling them that "life's not fair, sometimes people do these things to each other, so you may as well get used to it". This is the argument you make when you're trying to justify something to yourself. When you feel conflicted about what you're watching so you find a way to rationalise it. I've done this many times. The process almost never generates a rational argument, as you're not working from a place of reason, but of defensive admiration. And "they've got too many contestants"? Then they should've taught some of them a lesson about how "dog-eat-dog" the industry is by not putting some of them through in the first place! I thought the people sitting behind that desk in front of the stage were supposed to be judges! Oh wait, no I didn't, because it pretends to be a singing competition! Of course it would create pretences elsewhere!<br /><br />But do I hate the judges? No. They're as much a victim of this as everyone else. I'm not, however, going to respect them, like we're clearly expected to do, for making those "really tough decisions". I only saw Nicole, and she didn't have the discipline to choose her 6 wisely. I sat there thinking about what I would do in their place. Very simply, I would walk. If I had absolutely no choice, I would at least make a promise to my group that everyone I asked to sit on those chairs would stay on those chairs. And, most importantly of all, I would keep that promise. It doesn't matter how hard it would be. And I wouldn't want my contestants to make it easy on me. But I would damn well keep my promise.<br /><br />I have made the mistake of watching this show for 7 years. I did it only because everyone else in the house did. I sat there in silence watching that show insult my intelligence and any self-respecting musician with almost everything they did with their crap defences of acts that wouldn't realistically last a few months, or that had no redeeming qualities whatsoever, giving them false hope instead of doing the decent thing by saving them a lifetime of embarrassment by telling them that they wouldn't have a sustainable career and would be the joke of the country for the next few months. I sat there watching the judges decide to keep those novelty acts in the competition over people with an actual chance, purely because "they were entertaining". I sat there watching the judges break up bands and manufacture new ones out of an arbitrary group of soloists. I even sat through Jedward. But most importantly, I watched every final in which a singer, who may or may not have a chance at a decent future, sang a mind-bogglingly ill-fitting song, with the near-guarantee of getting the Christmas no.1 except mercifully the year we decided to stick Rage on them, and when the military wives took it from them fairly, and I watched most of those finalists fade into obscurity after 2 badly performing singles, gutted from their record deal for what is entirely the fault of the Syco record label themselves as they wrote the songs, after not being given any chance. But maybe I should be thanking them. Because finally, at long last, they have crossed my line. The line that means I can't, even begrudgingly, support them with their viewer-ship. I'm free. It's over.<br /><br />I want to end this article with an apology. I'm sorry to everyone who feels like me and who I've betrayed by watching that show. I feel sorry for anyone who truly believes they have a shot at greatness by going through that ordeal, given the show's track record. And I wish that my past self could apologise to my current self for ever deciding to sit down on that sofa and turn that shit on.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-64453520233327777032013-09-21T17:26:00.001-07:002013-09-21T17:26:11.800-07:00The Worst Form Of Writer's Block (And How To Defeat It)Hi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />I'm notorious for claiming that I like blogging and making videos but then going months without releasing anything. During my productive periods, the reason this happens is always the same: I can't think of any ideas. Or so it seems at the time. The truth is, I have no problem coming up with ideas. I just censor most of them. I have in my head a certain standard that I expect from my content and if the idea doesn't seem like it will generate that standard of content, I abandon it.<br /><br />Let me make an educated guess about you, the person reading this blog right now. What probably drew you to it were the words "Writer's Block", but then the phrase in brackets: "And How To Defeat It". Chances are pretty good that you are in a similar situation to me: you have some form of recurring writer's block: be it with blogging, music, poetry, a novel, a film script, a painting, or any piece of art imaginable. You probably either can't motivate yourself to do it, or, when you try, you feel you have nothing worth producing, or both. If there's a magic bullet for beating it, which is what a lot of us probably want to see when clicking on an article that claims to defeat writer's block, but realistically probably only provides advice that some people might find moderately helpful, and others won't find helpful at all; that, to me, would be the following 3 word phrase: lower your standards.<br /><br />I bet you anything that, like me, when you say you have no ideas, you have quite a few. You just have a self-censorship process in your mind that has become so adept, so automatic, as to barely be noticeable on a conscious level. Here's a quick experiment. Euthanasia. Now, upon seeing that word, what comes to mind? Think to yourself everything you know about euthanasia. Next, write it down either on paper or a Word document. What do you think of what you've written? If you have the kind of highly developed ability to censor yourself as I have, you might think "utter shit". "Ill-informed, simplistic, obvious garbage that no-one would want to read and it would be an embarrassment to post." Here's my challenge to you: copy it into a blog post and post it anyway. See what kind of reaction you get, if any. Apply this to all forms of art. Upload your dissonant, out-of-tune songs to Soundcloud. Paint that painting and don't be afraid to hurl the cans of paint at the canvas like Hal does in Malcolm In The Middle. Write that clichéd, pun-infested cesspit of a poem. Upload either of those to Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram.<br /><br />Why? It's very simple. When you post nothing, you achieve nothing. You sit there for hours, desperately trying to think of that inspired idea that never comes. Want to know why it never comes? You have no practice committing ideas to a publishing, and you have nowhere to draw ideas from. When you post, you will get some feedback somewhere. That feedback could be a simple critique of your work, or it could be discussion about it. Both are good things, regardless of whether they are positive or negative comments: an audience of people will generate more criticisms in a small period of time than you can in a larger period of time allowing you to learn faster, and the discussion that your post generates, will give you more ideas than you can come up with on your own, as well as clues to better ideas. There is only 1 perspective where negative criticism causes you to lose out: where you have a reputation to maintain. Here, the internet saves the day.<br /><br />Let's imagine a completely unrealistic scenario: in the not too distant future, Orygyn has 1 million viewers, subscribers, readers, whatever it may be. As such, I have a reputation that must be upheld so I can't produce sub-standard content. If I really didn't want to risk that reputation, I'd set up a second blog, completely unrelated and unconnected to Orygyn, to make that post. Out of the hellfire of trolling and abuse that comes from posting that ignorant post will come a refined product worthy of the blog. Of course, I could still post it on Orygyn, in which case, I could turn it around by admitting my stupidity and harvesting the more plentiful diamonds that would emerge from such an episode.<br /><br />Maybe you think you'll never improve. I bet you something right now. If you take my advice, you won't even need to try to improve. You'll just subconsciously do it. You will automatically notice weaknesses and gradually weed them out, all without ever consciously being aware of the process. And after a significant amount of time, you will look back and notice the difference. And it'll feel amazing. I look at my videos from when I was 19 and cringe. I look at my earliest posts on this blog and cringe. I look at relatively RECENT posts on this blog and cringe! And I'm sure a few others do as well. And here I am, laughing about it as I type this post, which I may one day also look back on and cringe. And having that reaction will mean, inarguably, that I've improved.<br /><br />Arnold Schwarzenegger had 6 rules which he said he lived by. The 3rd, the most relevant to this topic, is "don't be afraid to fail". I am facing that fear right now by shamelessly ripping off that idea to frame in the context of defeating writer's block. Experience tells me this might get 100 views on a VERY good day but likely no more than 10, and probably no comments either way. But those are views I wouldn't have gotten if I didn't have the courage to post. That is writing experience, the experience of seeing ideas on a page, which can generate more, the experience of thinking and writing, all of which will benefit me, none of which I would gain by being stubborn and wallowing in my Herculean standards of myself. And, on reflection right now, I feel very good. I've done something. Anything. Just not nothing.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-59997932210689129632013-09-21T16:00:00.000-07:002013-09-21T16:00:11.432-07:00Observations about NuanceHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />What I'm about to say, we all have some experience of if we've spent enough time on the internet. We hear things: comments so outrageous in their stupidity that we question whether they can possibly be serious. Many times we tell ourselves that these people are trolls, that no-one can possibly be this stupid. I think there's a simple explanation for this. Think about your knowledge: think about what you know a lot about, and then think about what you know very little about. Are you well-rounded? Or, are some areas vastly more developed than others? I can't imagine many people would identify with option 2, we all have our areas of expertise. On the other hand, we all have our areas of near total ignorance. When two people of dissimilar knowledge-bases meet, the ignorance in both will become clear. This happens on a much larger scale on the internet.<br /><br />Now for a question. What makes something more stupid than another? If a comment displays total ignorance of, or inability to understand, the relevant subject matter, what could qualitatively trump such ineptitude? Finding ineptitude in a different place maybe. However, there's only so much ineptitude that can be displayed in YouTube comments or videos. I constantly hear about how something will be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What we're really trying to do is relate to each other: create a temporary bond between and among OP and guests. Social entertainment. Like when people bitch about other people. Do they really spend a lot of time thinking about the people they're bitching about? Is it really as bad to them personally as they make it out to be? Doubtful. They will exaggerate and encourage each others exaggerations to feed off of each other and create that unique and powerful form of entertainment that we crave: attention. Not to mention, certain degrees of stupidity make us feel. How they make us feel will vary widely: amused (how could they be so stupid), bemused (how do I share DNA with them), befuddled (how do you say something like that and not realise how stupid it sounds), angry (that's it after all those years of school) etc. You can only ever truly understand a feeling when you're feeling it, so when it happens again, it will feel new and more powerful, even though, logically, that shouldn't be the case. It should be the same.<br /><br />These are why one-liners and soundbites succeed as ideas over nuanced and well-thought out arguments. People need to bond over the issue to get a movement going. You can agree or disagree with an argument, but an enemy always gets emotions going more. An enemy, or a single, simple soundbite expressing an emotion, a state of being, or a desired outcome. Even something as vague or as simple as "Change". Or "Hope". Or, if you're from Scotland like me, "Better Together". Why associate yourself with the inherently negative idea of "No" when you could associate yourself with something positive, something that suggests community?<br /><br />But so what? There's nothing particularly insightful about what I've said here. What matters is how we apply these ideas. The side that claims to have the more substantive argument will traditionally shy away from these tactics as being dishonest or insulting to their target audience's intelligence. But intelligence has little to do with it. If your job is centered around convincing people of things, you need to bear in mind that the people you're talking to don't have all the time in the world, or the desire to spend ages listening to a detailed, nuanced argument, however well thought out it would be. They need to care. You need to hook them fast. They're only going to bother with the details if you make them want to. That first step is essential. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It even has very little to do with attention span. It's simple time economy.<br /><br />Here's an analogy. As a musician, suppose you hear 2 songs. One is like nothing you've heard before. It uses unique instruments, instruments uniquely, the vocalists have a unique style of singing with incredible ranges, but the song deviates far from the verse-chorus structure of pop music. The other consists of 4 chords repeating over and over again with a simple melodic hook probably in the intro of the song that appears here and there, but everything else is standard for the genre. A casual glance at any music chart will make it obvious which is more successful. Neither style nor substance need hinder the other but both are necessary. All substance will do little to inspire, merely gain fringe respect, and in today's society might be derided as "hipster rubbish". All style will hit hard and disappear fast. A mixture of both will become legend.<br /><br />Therein lies the problem. I see both separately but very little mixing of the two in any aspect of society, be it art, politics, or even social situations. So here's a soundbite for you:<br /><br />"Be style. Be substance. Be different. Be legend!"<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-44644957497522791012013-09-19T15:17:00.002-07:002013-09-19T15:17:15.903-07:00Catching Up: Issues Of Varying ImportanceHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />Once again, I have monumentally failed to produce Orygyn content on a consistent basis. I'm hoping the revival of my <a href="https://twitter.com/Orygyn">Twitter</a> account, in response to YouTube doing away with video responses, will remedy that situation. I plan to be more engaged with what remains of the community I participated in. Maybe this was YouTube's master plan: do away with responses so that people mobilise to become more connected with their friends. Who knows.<br /><br />In this post, I'll chime in on all sorts of things that have happened since I was last active, assigning an appropriate amount of weight to each issue.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK3g86Hp93I">Healthyaddict's assault</a>:<br /><br />I can say with total honesty that I've never been more disgusted with the majority response to anything we've talked about than I have over the response to this issue. I've seen numerous people in comments and videos attempt to prove to us and themselves that they are "skeptics" by openly telling her that they don't believe her because there's "no evidence". I don't see skepticism here, I see psychopathy: people showing a complete and total lack of empathy towards Ashley. Yes, we can't be ABSOLUTELY sure it happened, and, in a legal setting, it would be entirely appropriate for her to give as much evidence as she is able to give to rule out the possibility of her trying to get an innocent person incarcerated, but this isn't a court of law. What any non-psychopathic skeptic should do in that situation is either say nothing, or say something comforting, not coldly deny all of it and ask for "evidence". I have to ask, what kind of evidence could you possibly accept here? I can't think of anything that would pass for decent evidence here. The assault may not have caused any bruising (and no this wouldn't mean that it's not a serious assault), and even if it did, I would have bet money on people claiming that she either self-inflicted those bruises or got them through other means. Face it, there is NOTHING she could have done to prove to these "skeptics" that she was assaulted. I got this idea instead, and feel free to call me crazy, that thunderf00t fanboys, riled up from his constant attacks on feminists and opposition to conference policies aimed at reducing assaults reacted first, and hid behind the "skeptic" label when confronted. Choosing your side and then finding a defence for it is not good skepticism. But maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. I am, after all, a skeptic.<br /><br />Miley<br /><br />What I saw offended me. Kids watch this stuff. If I was a dad, I couldn't in good conscience let my kids sit in front of that TV watching those disgusting images and letting them think that was music. Couldn't they just have got 1 note in tune? Couldn't they just have a basic musical understanding of their own songs? But, unlike many others, I didn't spend the minute or so before the performance tumbling through a wormhole after having just fallen from the Mayflower.<br /><br />Syria<br /><br />This is by far the most important issue and I will treat it as such. First off, I have to cringe that for nearly 3 years, we've watched the country tear itself apart paying only lip service during that time while we helped out the Libyan rebels. But now, because a different kind of weapon has been used, "we cannot let these atrocities continue"! I admire your commitment to human decency, kind sirs! Torture during imprisonment, millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, we can let that slide, but chemical attacks? That's too far! The argument is that this is to deter further use of chemical weapons. My advice: stick to that argument. Don't pretend to care now, it's too late. And no, I'm no better. I've never said anything about these conflicts. But my poker face isn't up to the task of saying something that enormously hypocritical.<br />But as for the burning question, should we act militarily, diplomatically, or not at all? That's not an easy one. There are tons of strong opinions that will probably attempt to persuade me otherwise, but it's not as simple as I've been seeing. I'm ambivalent to the response I've seen. Everyone has Iraq on the brain. "That must not happen again". Governments have surprised me with their sensitivity to public feeling on this matter. However, one thought crossed my mind recently and I haven't been able to shake it. Are we carefully weighing the situation here, or is this mostly a knee-jerk reaction to Iraq? Let's face it, Iraq was the extension of a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. There should be more to it than "not Iraq again", and I hope there is.<br />Here's where I'm at, and it's not a place of being very informed, I should make that clear. First, how could this be diplomatically resolved? The Syrian people aren't going to give up, and I'd find it difficult to accept any argument otherwise given how much they've lost and that, nearly 3 years later, they're still going. The leadership has to change. Is there any way to persuade Assad out of power? I doubt it. Sanctions haven't worked as they weren't universally enforced. As far as Assad is concerned, this war was started by other countries: Syria's "enemies". Realistically, this war will only end with the government being overthrown. Should we help them? I don't know. I need to do more research. Yes, I did just say that. However, it needs to be said, and people who are also in my situation need to admit it. That's the take away message from this: don't just blindly react, think.<br /><br />Let's see how long I last this time before I take the next months-long siesta from the blogosphere.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-57890043844400391042013-09-16T14:56:00.003-07:002013-09-16T14:56:38.767-07:00Egos vs SkepticismHi guys, welcome to Orygyn!<br /><br />In arguments, you win when you win, and you lose when you win. You win when you win because your argument remains the strongest. You win when you lose, because your inferior argument has been destroyed, and you've just been given a stronger one. However, if your ego tells you that you must be smarter than your opponent, losing isn't an option, because they were able to think up an argument you couldn't (maybe because they were smarter)? Regardless of the validity of that statement, it will play on your mind. Cutting your losses (bad arguments) is like admitting that you're not the smartest, except it's not. Focus on the most meaningful aspect of intelligence: what you can achieve. You will then be smarter with each tossed-aside dud instead of clinging for dear life to a flawed argument, impractical concept of intelligence, and harmful ego. You may not have the best argument at the moment, but all that means is that you're not perfect. What you are, is learning.<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2888627716712785553.post-68195274809058321592013-01-20T16:23:00.001-08:002013-01-20T16:23:54.097-08:00Turning a masterpiece into a guilty pleasureHi guys, welcome to Orygyn.<br /><br />I've neglected this blog. I made a brief resurgence on YouTube in November and December, but recently I've neglected that too. It was the Christmas period and I've been busy but I can't give any promises about how active I'll be here or on YouTube in the immediate future. Anyway, let's get to the point.<br /><br />There are many different comeback posts I could've made here. I'm not happy about having to do this one but it has to be done. There's a view on the internet sometimes expressed that if you don't like something: a person, a video, a song, or a film, that you have the option of not watching and not commenting on it. By it's very nature it wouldn't make sense to apply it to politics, but it gets applied a lot to art forms. As a general rule, this is a viewpoint which I take to heart and practice, mostly because other people's opinions on art almost never offend me. The "almost" can be removed for cases in which people are stating that they simply like or dislike some form of art, without making a more objective statement that uses the word "good" or "bad". There are points that I sometimes take issue with that I can ignore. The only thing that could really prompt a post like this is when a viewpoint that I take issue with is expressed repeatedly and, most importantly, mindlessly by many people.<br /><br />Today, what I want to say is this: a question you have about a film which you can't answer is not a plot hole. The specific movie I have in mind here is The Dark Knight Rises. Let's start with the obligatory "what did I think of it". Answer: when I came out of the cinema, I was shaking. I couldn't actually walk straight. I've never liked any film as much as I liked this one. I hope this account of my reaction pre-emptively discourages any of those extremely annoying comments like "well, you didn't really like it THAT much, I'm sure if you gave it some thought there would be other films you liked more". Eh, no. I've seen The Dark Knight. I've seen The Godfather. I've seen Citizen Kane. I've seen many genuine classics and I can say with total honesty that the only thing that's even come close to giving me the same reaction were Inception, also by Christopher Nolan, and the anime series, Death Note, and Rises still wins.<br /><br />Now having said all of that, if you didn't like the film, cool. If anything I WANT to hear what you didn't like about it, but in the end, the personal reaction is what matters. I would never view you as being stupid or possessing any negative trait because we disagree. And, best of all, I don't even expect that to be mutual: express your disbelief or questions about my intelligence all you want. Where it crosses a line is when people try to make me ashamed of liking it. I'm making this post because I can feel the process at work on what I've already said is my honest favourite film ever. You will never change my mind about this film, only I could conceivably do that to myself, but if you make me ashamed of liking it, I'll never forgive you. Worst of all are the reasons for not liking the film that are motivating this process.<br /><br />When people criticise The Dark Knight Rises, the consensus I've seen is this. It's an enjoyable film but it leaves you asking questions. I didn't have this reaction. Mine was simply "I have to see that again". To understand the "questions" viewpoint, I had to see what questions they were stuck on. All of them, without exception could either be explained away with the slightest bit of imagination, demonstrate inconsistent viewing when compared to the other films in the trilogy, or, worst of all, were actually addressed in the film. It might not have explained the ins and outs, but it told you all you needed to know. Examples:<br /><br /><b>"The "magic" knee brace"</b><br /><b><br /></b>Or alternatively, the knee brace. It didn't do anything "magic" at all. It simply took some of the strain off of Bruce Wayne's battered, cartilage-free knee. When he kicked the wall down, that was his own strength, which he's had throughout the previous films.<br /><br /><b>"How did he get back to Gotham from Bane's prison?"</b><br /><b><br /></b>This is explained in the film. Lucius says to Bruce "Did you have a nice flight?" That and the fact that Bruce fixed the autopilot on "The Bat" is all you need to know.<br /><br /><b>"Why did he waste time burning a bat symbol onto the bridge?"</b><br /><b><br /></b>This is a film about false hope. Bane terrorises Gotham by holding them hostage but otherwise allowing them to take complete control of the city. The flaming bat signal symbolises real hope: Batman is back, and he's putting a stop to Bane. As a symbol of real hope to conflict with Bane's false hope, letting the world, Gotham and Bane know that he's back, this wasn't a waste of time.<br /><br />That should give you an idea, and I'll gladly give my opinion on more of these so-called questions if anyone brings them up in the description (assuming of course anyone actually reads this).<br /><br />8&lt;{D-Orygynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04847789311707865530noreply@blogger.com0